the cost of war is too high, sanctions is a way of showing people you're doing something while you wait figuring out what you want from diplomacy or wait to see if you can avoid a war because war -- interesting that you are from iraq. ..

[inaudible conversations] am i right that their foundations are supporting all the -- [inaudible] >> well the, actually, yeah, the bahraini ruling family asked for support from other members of the gulf cooperation council. saudis sent members of the national guard or which unit was it? >> national guard. >> national guard and emirates sent police, and i think the qataris sent police. now, they went to protect the major infrastructure in bahrain so that the bahraini security forces could deal with the demonstrations, the saudis, the emirates, the qataris did not deal with the demonstrations themselves. but from their point of view, and this is, this is the dilemma from the united states too, this is the dilemma from the united

states, you know, iran has exploited situations before. it has exploited situations before. there's the fear that it could exploit this one again, and that is why when we look, we do not know what to make of this group and where it stands on questions of democracy and participation and where it stands in its relationships with iran. we don't -- we have concerns about that. that are hampering our decision making. is there any other question? it's 12:00, we really need to close because of the cameras. so i guess i will say at this point thank you very much for coming. thank you to the panelists. [applause] and, again, we have a web site, www.mepc.org. i hope you visit it. [inaudible conversations]

>> the middle east council wrapping up this discussion on foreign policy choices facing the next administration. we are going from this to the heritage foundation live now for a discussion on russia's role in the syrian civil war. this is just getting started. >> minute or two to do a short wrap-up. i will tell you for those of you who have not been to panels that i have moderated before, when you ask a question, if you get past the second piece of english language and i don't hear a question mark, i'm going to stop you. so this is not a time for the audience to give speeches. we have four experts up here to give those. so to make sure we get as many questions asked and answered as possible, just try and keep your questions suck sinlt, get to the question part, and we'll let the experts address them. but now we're ready to start. i'm going to do all the introo ductions right away, and then we'll just go down the line.

the speakers are sitting in the order which they will present. we're going to start with dr. jim phillips who's a senior research fellow for middle eastern affairs here at the heritage foundation. he has written extensively about the middle east and international terrorism since 1978. he's a member of the board of editors of middle east quarterly, and jim has been interviewed frequently on numerous media outlets and has written for quite a few of the major u.s. newspapers in the area or in these areas of his expertise. he is extremely knowledgeable man who has seen things happen and comments on them in, okay, in my humble opinion in a very reasonable and accurate way. he'll be followed by dr. robert freedman who is the peggy mire how far pearlstone professor of political science at baltimore

hebrew university and visiting professor of science at johns hopkins university. he has been a consultant to both the u.s. department of state and the central intelligence agency, and he is the author of four books on soviet foreign policy and is also the editor, has been the editor of 14 books on israel and middle eastern policy. and then our third speaker will be dr. stephen blank, he is the strategic study institute's expert on soviet bloc and post-soviet world since 1989. he is the editor of imperial decline: russia's changing position in asia and co-editor of "the soviet military in the future." and he will -- the last speaker is dr. ariel cohen, my colleague here at heritage, who is the senior research fellow for russian and eurasian studies. ariel has often been called upon to testify on russian and former soviet politics, economics and

law before the u.s. congress and regularly provides commentary on these issues through numerous media outlets both domestically and across the globe. so i believe we have the right people here to discuss the topic which i didn't come up with the title so i can say it's clever and not feel disingenuous, how russia helps assad as the u.s. fiddles. and we'll start with jim phillips. >> thanks, steve. i'd like to set the stage for our next three speakers who will focus primary listen on russian -- primarily on russian policy by outlining u.s. policy and how it's factored into the blood path we see in syria today with more than 30,000 dead and no end in sight. from the beginning, i think it's fair to say that the obama administration was behind the curve on following events in syria. in part i think it was because of ideological baggage it

carried when it entered office which led to wishful thinking about the supposed benefits of engaging the assad regime. in part i think it was a horrible misreading of the nature of the assad regime and the possibility of negotiating a diplomatic transition to a new government. and i think in part it was due to an insistence on multilateralism almost as an end in itself which hamstrung u.s. policy and pushed decision making to the united nations which was paralyzed by a lack of consensus and the threat of a russian and chinese veto. the obama administration entered office determined to improve relations with the assad regime and initially soft pedaled its criticism of the regime's hostile policies including its violent crackdown on its own people.

it did this despite the assad regime's deep-rooted hostility to u.s. policy in the middle east, its longstanding support of terrorism second only to iran, its implacable hostility to israel and its close alliance with iran and russia and before that the soviet union. syria-supported groups killing u.s. troops in iraq and supported hezbollah, the lebanese terrorist organization which was responsible for the death of many americans including the marine barracks in beirut. and i go back to lebanon because i think it's worth noting that the marines initially had been deployed there to separate israel and the plo following the 1982 lebanon war, but they were called back following the assassination of the lebanese president-elect who was assassinated by a probe-syrian group -- pro-syrian group.

fast forward to 2005, and there was an assassination of another lebanese leader, this time a former prime minister who courageously had stood up to syrian domination inside lebanon. and that led the bush administration to withdraw the u.s. ambassador to syria, because syria, once again, had been implicated in the assassination of a lebanese leader. despite the assad regime's bloody track record, the administration sought to improve relations with damascus and used senator john kerry as an intermediary. it reversed the bush administration's attempt to mobilize international pressure against the assad regime, and it reversed a decision to withdraw the u.s. ambassador. when the democratic-controlled senate balked at approving a new u.s. ambassador to syria, the administration made an end run by naming robert ford as

ambassador while congress was in recess in december 2010. and although ford later performed ably in demonstrating solidarity with syria's opposition, peaceful demonstrators, he could have done that in a different diplomatic position. didn't necessarily have to be an ambassador. unfortunately, sending an ambassador back to damascus when the assad regime had not modified its hostile policies sent a message that washington was eager to restore relations despite syria's continued role as a spoiler in the middle east. and this also hinted that there would be little price to be paid for future hostile acts. one of the principal motivations for the or administration's glossing over syria's longstanding enmity was the hope to draw damascus into peace negotiations with israel, and this has been a pattern followed

by other administrations. the comprehensive arab/israeli peace is the holy grail of the american presidency, and other administrations have pursued that and softened u.s. policy on syria in pursuit of an israeli/syria peace treaty, particularly the clinton administration which dispatched secretary of state warren christopher to damascus more than 20 times which was more than e went to moscow or -- he went to moscow or beijing. but these and other efforts to broker a syrian/israeli peace failed because damascus was interested in participating in a peace process but not in actually signing a peace treaty. and it was interested in the process because that would diffuse international pressure against it going back in the '90s when it lost its soviet ally and would allow it to reap the benefits of participating in

a process without paying the cost of signing a peace treaty with israel which would jeopardize its claim to leadership of the arab world, the resistance axis as well as expose it to political vulnerabilities at home where it faced opposition from the muslim brother hood when was adamantly opposed to peace with israel. in any case, the obama administration's engagement policy failed in sir or ya just as -- syria just as it has failed in iran. in both cases wishful thinking about drawing a hostile regime into a grand bargain or diplomatic settlement of outstanding issues proved to be unfounded and yielded few tangible results. but in its eagerness to negotiate a deal with both regimes, the administration pulled its punches and initially muted its criticism of the bloody repression that these regimes meted out to opposition movements. and we saw this in iran in june 2009 when the administration

took days if not weeks to really toughen its rhetoric on the suppression of the green movement, when peaceful protests erupted in syria in march 2011, the assad regime responded with brute force including indiscriminate shelling, artillery and tanks and air strikes. but the administration continued to treat the regime with kid gloves. hillary clinton went so far as to describe bashar al assad as a reformer in a march 27th statement, and this was an embarrassing misreading of the situation in syria. and although assad had promised to promote reform following the death of his father in 2000, he's done precious little to deliver on those promises. in july 2011 the assad regime showed its contempt for u.s. policy by orchestrating a mob attack on the u.s. embassy in damascus, and these and other

threats led to the eventual withdrawal of the u.s. ambassador for his own protection. the administration imposed three r0u7bds of incrementally escalating sanctions before president obama finally called for assad to step down in august 2011 when it became clear that this naive approach to assad had failed, the administration outsourced its syria policy to the united nations where russia easily could block effective action. the administration opted to support the peace plan which was doomed to fail as soon as it was put in place last april. no outside force is capable of imposing a peace in syria as long as the power struggle, a struggle to the death, i think, continues to intensify between the assad regime and the many opposition groups it has spawned. it provided the illusion of progress involving the

increasingly bloody conflict but did little to slow assad's killing machine. the u.n. initiative was initially tiny, and this was at russia's insistence, initially there were only 40 observers deployed in a country that is bigger than the state of north dakota. this diplomatic charade benefits assad by buying time to crush the rebellion and benefited russia and iran by helping them to salvage a brutal middle east ally. but it did little to protect syria's suffering people, and it does nothing to advance u.s. national interests by ridding the middle east of a major regime, a state sponsor of terrorism. without american leadership, the international community often amounts to little more than an empty euphemism on many critical issues, and we're seeing that in syria. russia, china and iran continue to support the assad dictatorship.

tehran has propped assad up by sending arms, deploying revolutionary guards from the elite quds force to advise and assist syria's security forces in repressing the opposition. the quds force is electronically tracking down and helping the syrian security forces to arrest these opposition leaders. it's training a militia similar to one in iran which was instrumental in repressing iran's green movement in 2009, although i think we haven't heard the last of the green movement. i think the bottom line is that the obama administration must abandon its wishful thinking about the nature of the assad regime, about the effectiveness of the united nations and about the supposed benefits of this reset with russia if it is to successfully address what's going on inside syria. its timid syria policy is especially grating when compared

to its policy on egypt, and there the administration pressed for hosni mubarak to resign in a matter of weeks despite the fact that he was a longtime ally, but it took the administration five months to issue similar calls for the resignation of assad. and i think that a country that gains a reputation for quickly abandoning its friends while courting its enemies inevitably will find that it has more enemies and less friends. unfortunately, i think this is likely to be one of the lasting legacies of the obama administration in the middle east. thank you. >> thanks, jim. >> be okay. first of all, i want to thank the heritage foundation, ariel especially for inviting me here, and it's a pleasure to be here with jim and steve and ariel on the platform. i have only 12 minutes as i was promised, and i have a lot to

cover, so i'll do it, i'll speak quickly, if there are any questions afterwards, please, pick them up. i have seven parts to the presentation. first, historical look at both soviet and russian relations with syria which go back to 1946 before putin. look at putin's policies, 2005-2010 before the arab spring, then, number three, look at russia's concern with the arab spring. then, number four, most important look at russia's considerations in dealing with syria during the crisis. number five, i'm going to deal with the costs to russia of its syrian policy which i see as quite large. number six, try to explain why russia perseveres in what seems to be a counterproductive policy and finally, draw some conclusions. in any case, the russian/syrian relation goes back a long way. in 1946 after syria became independent from france, moscow established an embassy in the damascus and became a major center of activity in the middle

east and was the center point for negotiations between the zionist movement and the soviet union leading up to soviet support for the establishment of the state of israel in 1948. following the death of stall season and a series of coups in damascus, syrian became a purchaser of soviet arms in the 1950s, and some in the u.s. at the time feared syria was, quote, going communist. the egyptian/syrian union in 1958 ended those fears, but it was not warmly received in moscow which at the time called nasser, egypt's leader, a hotheaded young man for doing it. however, when the uar broke up in 1961, moscow again courted damascus, and following the coup in 1966, relations became quite close. and you'll recall that soviet issues to preserve the narrowly-based regime became one of the causes for the 1967 arab/israeli war. relations grew closer in 1970 following the coup that brought

al assad to power. syria granted russia a naval installation, supply and maintenance facility and the two countries signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation. by 1974 as egypt began to move into the u.s. orbit, syria emerged as moscow's number one arab ally. that is not to say that there are no problems between the two sides, as syrian intervention in lebanon in 1975 and '76 clearly displeased moscow as did its refusal to accept u.n. security council resolution 232. nonetheless, syria supported the u.s. invasion of afghanistan in 1979 and was richly rewarded with military aid as a result. the close relationship continued until the advent of gorbachev in 1985 who turned off the tap of military aid and urged assad to settle his dispute with israel politically and not be war the chill in the relationship continued until 2005 when a combination of increasing syrian isolation due to the policies in

lebanon jim mentioned and a much more aggressive russian foreign policy under putin reestablished the close russian/syrian relationship that we see today. now, let's look at putin's policies in his second term. i see reacting to serious setbacks such as the mishandled school rescue fiasco and the orange revolution in the ukraine and at the same time noting the increasing vulnerability of the u.s. in the middle east because of its invasion of iraq which alienated the gulf arab states, especially saudi arabia as well as turkey, and because the revival of the taliban in afghanistan, putin went on to fencive and took several steps. first, he tried to improve relations with iran, syria and hezbollah as well as turkey in the case of syria, 9.8 billion of the 13.4 billion soviet-era debt was forgiven, and putin authorized new weapons sales. and syria, in return, was one of the few states in the world to

support russia in its invasion of georgia in 2008. the second step of putin's policy occurred in 2007. the u.s. still in disarray in the middle east, moscow moved to try to expand its influence from the rogue states to cultivate the leading sunni-arab states such as saudi arabia, uae and jordan, and in 2008 he added libya to the expanding arc of activity. putin's goals were fourfold. number one, demonstrate russia was again a major power in the middle east and the world. number two, gain -- for projects while selling sophisticated products like nuclear reactors and railway systems. number three, as the cost and difficulty of extracting russian oil and natural gas grew to gain joint ventures in oil and natural gas extraction with countries like saudi arabia, iran, uae, libya and iraq. and number four and certainly very important, to prevent the arab states from aiding the islamic resistance movements in

the north caucuses that were beginning to spread through the rest of russia. but keeping good ties with the sunni alignment in egypt and jordan and the shia group of hezbollah was not easy, especially as tensions rose between the two groups. this was to be increasingly clear with the onset of the arab spring. now, when you look initially at russian concerns with the arab spring, a, it could spread to russia which suffered some of the same problems as the arab states. autocratic government, widespread corruption, rising prices, indeed, some of the democracy demonstrators were shouting the revolutionary train stopped at the station in cairo, next stop moscow. second concern, islamists might take over in the chaos and further inspire the islamists in north caucuses and increasingly in ca zahn as well. number three, oil and gas investments in the middle east could be jeopardized as well as business and arms sales deals. and number four, when libya occurred, the russians, i think,

took a major lesson. they abstained on the u.n. security council vote on the no-fly zone in libya, thereby supporting the arab consensus and, therefore, continuing to widen russian policy. but as the russians see it, this boomeranged badly as the no-fly zone became a case of regime change, and russia lost almost $4 billion in arms sales and several billion dollars in industrial contracts. now, here we come to the main point. why are the russians doing what they're doing in syria? and a number of points. number one, no repeated libyan experience where russia lost militarily and economically. we won't permit regime change. number two, syria remains an important country in the middle east, ties to iran, his what and much less so now to hamas. i think the russians don't want to alienate iran, syria's main ally, who's already angry because of russia's 2010 sanctions vote against it under

medvedev. number three, russia's a major market for arms, antiship missiles and especially air defense. number four, the naval facility. while it is mostly floating docks and several warehouses, it's the only facility open to russia in the middle east, important symbolic value, and in january elements of the russian fleet visited, literally showing the flag. number five, russia has economic investments in syria totaling almost $20 billion. number six, and this is a point that my colleague, steve blank, is going to talk about, anti-americanism. as jim also mentioned, syria's a major anti-american force in the middle east, and putin will not let this be overthrown. number seven, islam. if islamists take over in syria, it will have a very negative effect on russia's muslim population, spur insurrections, and recently when islamists attacked u.s. embassies in cairo

and ambassador stevens got killed, the russians said, see, we told you this would happen if you backed the revolutions. and finally, number eight, with street demonstrations in moscow of december 2011 and in the midst of russia's presidential campaign, putin asserted that he saw, quote: the same forces at work in russia as in syria and that the u.s. was trying to do an orange revolution in russia. okay. russia then, in summing up, has vetoed three security council resolutions including watered-down ones criticizing syria, it continues to ship arms to syria saying there is no u.n. security council resolution against arms shipments, however, it's urging them to open up a dialogue with the assad regime and has supported the ill-fated kofi a man mission -- kofi annan mission. what are the costs of this policy? a, alienating an arc of states moscow's been wooing since 2007,

especially saudi arabia and qatar. two, alienating key islamic leaders who called for the boycotting of products of russia and several days ago said, and i quote: russian jets are bombing the syrian people, the arab and islamic world must boycott russia, we must consider russia our number one enemy. number three, it angers and alienates the united states, and number four, it increasingly alienates turkey whose erdogan regime has been backing the rebels. now, why is russia doing this? there's continued disunity among the revels, however, there's another chance to reunify. they hopefully moscow thinks they won't b be able to oust assad. number two, the u.s. and turkey have not been willing to extend their anti-syrian rhetoric. however, the turkish prime minister is quite headstrong. if he continues to be provoked by syrian shelling and the influx of refugees, he may take

action. in recent days following the shelling and turkey's forcing down of the syrian jet flying from moscow to damascus, russia's trying to quiet the situation by increasing the supply of natural gas from turkey to maintain the good relations between russia and turkey despite what's happening in syria. conclusion, moscow is taking a major middle east gamble with its policy in syria. if the gamble fails -- and i think it will, hopefully if the u.s. gets a little more active in the process -- moscow's middle east policy will be in deep trouble. thank you. >> thank you very much. steve? >> thank you very much. i want to thank ariel and the heritage foundation for inviting me. it's a pleasure to be back here again, especially with some old friends. i have to say that my remarks do not reflect the views of the army, the defense department or the u.s. government, and i'm going to talk about russian motives building on what bob has just said. i think there's some points that

can be added to that discussion. the motives that i see operating to drive russian foreign policy are all simultaneously implicated in the policy. you can't just pull out one string and say, well, that's the decisive factor here in the policy-making process in russia. they're all together. but what we can say, what we've observed in general about russian foreign policy in the last several years, not just syria, is that while we see an increaseing narrowing of the policy process in russia, it has been reported that fewer and fewer people are actually in a key position to make policy in general, not just foreign policy, and that putin rarely listens to a large circle of people. instead, he gets his information from a very restricted circle of people. he is not a tech-savvy guy the way medvedev was, and as a result -- and if you have the misfortune to spend your life reading the russian media as i do, what you see is mr. putin

lives in what may be called an ec cochamber of pair noise -- paranoids, feeding upon it and sending it out. so the russian belief that the country is under siege, and i use that term advisedly, from a western effort to undermine the stability of the russian government and ri place it even -- replace it even and that the allies of the west are russian democrats feeds into this s. can that's the first point. as bob mentioned, democracy threatens russia. there was an essay in the "wall street journal" making clear that democracy was the greatest threat to russia, and it still is. there is a profound fear on the part of the government of any manifestation of what autonomous political participation by the public in russia or elsewhere. as bob pointed out, the middle east is an example that could spread to russia, and the russians know it.

besides russia, they are quite alarmed or at least were quite alarmed that you would see in central asia a manifestation of this kind. in april the deputy foreign minister actually got up and told the duma that they were quite worried about this and gave advice. and medvedev, at that time the president, flew down to uzbekistan to work out a strategy to suppress any manifestation of what you might call a central asian spring. so the first motive here is the profound belief that the russian government is under threat from democracy, quote, and that democracy, quote, is essentially a western invention, and that the enemy at home is the enemy abroad. in other words, we still see a government that is addicted to the old leninist threat paradigm. even if the ideology had gone

the way of all flesh, the government believes they have the common goal of unseating the government and of the fomenting of revolution. many of these people cannot believe the revolutions in the middle east were autonomous because their whole experience of politics is revolution and coups are provocations incited by somebody who has something to gain from it, and they naturally project their own paranoia into the system. that's the first motive. second, there is a widespread and pervasive apprehension among the members of the russian elite, and it's also many members of the analytical faculties that they use, that any revolutionary movement in the arab world and, for that matter, in the muslim world generally -- and that's, again, including central asia -- is going to lead to the victory of islamic terrorists and fanatics. now, they can point to libya and say, i told you so. they haven't said much about tunisia because it's quiet and hasn't happened, even though the

islamic party prevailed in the elections there. but this is their belief, that essentially any manifestation of islamic political assertion is terrorist. they can't see it in any other way, and as a matter of fact, they have brought this upon themselves in the north caucuses which is out of control and as bob mentioned is on the verge of spreading into the russian heartland. therefore, what they see in tripoli and benghazi and cairo and in damascus is that if the authoritarian dictators fall, the only thing coming afterwards is the islamic fanatic terrorist threat which will, of course, export itself to russia. there's all these articles in the russian press about russian -- muslims fighting in syria with the salafists although we never know who these foreign governments are. nonetheless, you might, you might think there's an international muslim conspiracy to replace the old international other conspiracies that used to

exist in the fevered soviet imagination. and they actually do believe this stuff. therefore, their belief is that if assad goes, naturally, al-qaeda or somebody like that is going to come in in syria. second motive. third, anti-americanism. anti-americanism is a fundamental mainstream of all foreign policy, not just syria. two things have to be mentioned here. one, as i mentioned, the belief that they see themselves as under siege from the u.s. and democracy promotion in general. and they see the u.s. and the west carrying out a strategy of democracy promotion through supposed information weapons, information war fair, et -- war fare, etc., links with the demonstrators, hence the ongoing stream of repressive legislation. today they just opened the case against one of the leaders of the opposition. this is part of their world view. but geopolitically as well because they are obsessed with the idea that russia must be a

great power in the middle east which, by the way, they still see as an area close to their borders as if 1991 never happened. their objective in the middle east is to prevent the united states from having a free hand to consolidate a geopolitical order in the middle east. that is one of the fundamental reasons behind their support for iran. there are others such as their fear of what iran might do in the caucuses in central asia if russia was antagonistic to us, the threat of iranian oil exports to west which would undermine russia's main economic and geopolitical weapon and so on. nonetheless, it is essential to russian geopolitical thinking that russia must play a role in the middle east and can that it cannot allow the middle east to be rendered peaceful strictly by u.s. efforts alone. a continuation of tension, arms sales, running guns, they had a program to run guns until iran until 2008 when it was exposed,

the running of guns and weapons that we've just seen again in syria, attempts at diplomacy in cypress against turkey, other similar examples show that russia is determined to play a great power role here through all of the available means and to prevent the united states from consolidating a geopolitical arc. and they see the united states as doing so or attempting to do so with this democracy promotion americanism and by the unilateral result to force bypassing the u.n. of course, the russians say the u.n. must be observed because, after all, the only game in town for them. they have veto power in the security council and so forth. but as we all know, when they want to, they disregard the u.n. and make a mockery out of it. mr. putin admitted the war in georgia was planned two years in advance despite the claims they were invoking article 51. so the u.n. is a facade by which they pursue their main objectives of squelching democracy and blocking the

promotion of u.s. interests and power abroad. fourth, as i mentioned, they see the u.s. promotion of democracy not only as a net to russia, but as singularly uninformed because they believe that invariably it leads to protracted wars in the middle east that create an international crisis. they invoke iraq in this example, they will tell you that libya's completely out of control, though it doesn't nearly approach what's going on in the north caucuses despite the attack on the american consulate in benghazi last month. they will also tell you that if assad goes, islamists will take over, that the alternative is islamism everywhere and that, therefore, the united states really doesn't know what it's doing and that, therefore, assad and syrian opponents of his regime have to negotiate. they're never going to support assad leaving, and they don't want him to leave because the new government would be

anti-russian, and an anti-russian government in syria marginalizes russia in the middle east and renders the pursuit of this geopolitical objective quite questionable. it certainly would probably mean because they're not going to be particularly pro-shiite in lebanon the end of the funneling of russian weapons to hamas and hezbollah which is a large-scale operation going back at least six or seven years. the israelis discovered these weapons in 2006 and finally forced the russians to admit, well, you know, they might have gotten them somehow. but the fact is, they went through syria, and the russians knew full well who the end user of these systems. fourth reason then is not only this fear of islamism, but also they have belief that the united states doesn't know that it's playing with fire. finally, fifth reason. they have substantial although not nearly as substantial as used to be the case energy interests in syria and even more arms sales and the naval base. it's the only place where the navy can project power into the

mediterranean, and the navy clearly wants to do this and has been itching for the opportunity to do so. the russians have used gun boat diplomacy in syria by sending the fleet there twice. they used it in cypress as well last year to check turkey. and arms sales. arms sales in russian foreign policy are not just a question of selling weapons to friendly states. they are clearly an attempt to create a block of influence for the russian government within syria ask and within the middle east, the latest one being a $4.2 billion arms sale that was announced to iraq about a week or ten days ago. if iran manages to satisfy russian apprehensions with regard to the iaea, i would not be surprised to see russian weapons go back to iran. they are certainly trying to sell to everybody else in the middle east. and this is part of their larger strategy of asymmetric support to anti-american movements in the middle east in order to keep

russia in the game as a great power. therefore, we have important domestic lobbies that have a stake in the perpetuation of the assad regime, and more than that as many of you know and i've written about this, arms sales in russia are one of those mechanisms. because the whole sector is thoroughly corrupt, by which slush funds are provided to top government officials for black operations of various kinds whether at home or abroad. and if they were to lose another $4 billion market, which is what they lost in libya and what they could lose in syria, that would put a dent in the graft that is going to the top of the regime. we must never forget that what we are dealing with here is what is called in foreign affairs, a criminalized regime. if you've read wikileaks, it's all over the place. if you've read the books by luke harding and ed lucas and talk to foreign diplomats who will tell you it's a mafia state, it behaves and thinks like a mafia

state, and one of the principles of a mafia state is you support your friends when they're in trouble. and assad is a big friend for a mafia state. thank you. >> thank you very much. ariel? would you like to bring it home? >> bring it home and try to connect to u.s. policy. there are different opinions in the analytic community about why russia is so adamant about the support of bashar assad. yes, of course, it is an historic regime, it's a regime that goes back to, um, the '60s and even the '50s. russia got along famously with baath regimes in syria and a regime that was not that different. basically, quite secular, arab socialists, ultranationalist in some cases regimes. these regimes were anti-american

and with the leader of russia saying the collapse of the soviet union was the geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, clearly, having an anti-american regime is a good thing. some said that this is about iran. i think the iranian dimension that we didn't discuss in the great detail here is an important dimension. iran is the strongest middle eastern, albeit not an arab country, but the strongest anti-american middle eastern country. it has a relationship that goes back towards the gorbachev era when the late ayatollah khomeini famously sent a letter to gorbachev and said, mr. gorbachev -- he didn't say, tear down this wall -- he said, the wall fell, your ideology collapsed, now you should all convert to islam. and there is a memoir and a

protocol from the poll lit borrow meeting where gorbachev mentions that and goes, ha, ha, ha. nevertheless, rather san janney, later the president, then i think the foreign minister arrives to moscow and signs, first, arms transactions with russia. russia sold weapons both to their friends in the iraq and to their friends in iran during the iraq/iran war, felt just great about it, and later on there is a massive channel of nuclear expertise. hundreds of sign difficults and engineers, hundreds -- scientists and engineers, hundreds of iranian scientists and engineers being preyed in russia. -- trained in russia, unfortunately, many of them were also trained in the west. so iran is extremely important as a battering ram against

american interests and, by implication, the sunni/arab allies of the united states as well as against israel that is seen as a little satan to america's great satan. so as syria the principal ally of iran in eastern mediterranean and in that part of the middle east, undermining syria and giving iran a bloody nose is, of course, seen from moscow a major priority both for the sunni/arabs and, therefore, the west. therefore, russia has to support its syrian allies, and support it does. including supply of weapons of different kinds, refurbishing of attack helicopters, providing as we saw with the aircraft that

was forced to land in ankara as mr. love love, the russian foreign minister himself said, the dual use radar parts. well, he used these parts to protect syria from turkish aircraft, one of which was shot down, and you use it not only to conduct civilian traffic. um, a prominent observer of russian foreign policy, the head of the moscow office of carnegie endowment, said that it's not only about geopolitics, it's also about geopolitics. and my colleagues did a great job of talking about the naval base, the port, another port that is also used as anchorage and supply base. and by the way, i published a list of russian aspiration and

priorities including before gadhafi went they were thinking about renewing the anchorage in libya, they were even thinking about going back to the island in the entrance to the red sea from the south, the island was, indeed, a soviet, an important soviet naval base during the cold war. so those aspirations of the russian navy are known, are still there. probably we should take them with a grain of salt because if you look, for example, at the black sea fleet which would be doing all this, the last ship was commissioned in, was introduced into service in 1992, and the black sea fleet is not if great shape. so there's a lot of work to be done there. in any event, um, it's not only about geopolitics, it's not only

about arms sales, it is about respect. and i don't want to go over the mafia metaphor that steve just did, but indeed, not just behalf behalf owe so but real powers sometimes crave respect. it's about who makes decisions, he says. the decision about the use of force in syria is made without russia or against russian opposition, putin will look at it in a very grave way just as he and his allies at the time looked at our decision to use force in iraq in 2003 and before that for those who tracked the russian affairs back then, in 1999, i believe, the then-prime minister turned the plane around the atlantic when the bombing in

serbia started and went back because russia was not appropriately consulted over the use of force against my milosev, let alone getting russian agreement in the u.n. security council. so the issues of sovereignty, the issues of use of force, the issues of agreement how to use force are extremely important not just for russia, but also for china. in the three vetoes in the security council, it wasn't just russia, but also china who opposed any kind of resolution that led to the use of force against the assad regime. and my colleagues mentioned the russian, that russia abstained in the security council on libya. that was very important because there was a rare public disagreement between putin and

medvedev. medvedev was the president, putin was the prime minister, medvedev kind of went along with abstention saying that russia should be on the same bandwagon with the west. i don't know if arab/sunni sensitivities were on his mind. and putin said, no, this is a western -- he used the word "crusade," western crusade against gadhafi, and we, russia, should not support it. but because they had this weird what they call tandem, the separation of the line of work in which, of course, medvedev played the second fiddle, but on that particular decision he prevailed, and there was a public rancor about that decision. i personally think that medvedev was right for a change. because if today did with libya what they're now doing in the

syria, then -- and this is one of the main points of my presentation -- then russia would pay a very high price in the arab world and in the muslim world by not just standing idly by, but actually aiding and abetting murder of unarmed people in muslim societies. and here we go to a very important statement by the leading muslim brotherhood idealogue that my colleague, professor freedman mentioned. when i saw it, i sort of read and reread what the sheikh said because the sheikh commands the loyalty of thousands and thousands of islamists, and we all know that he was no friend of the united states, he is no friend of the united states.

he justified killing of american soldiers in iraq, he justified killing of israeli civilians. but now he said quote: over 30,000 syrians have been killed with what weapons were they killed? with russian weapons. russia's providing the syrian regime with weapons and with anything else it needs. the syrian army is bombing people with airplanes. i do not understand why these planes are not prevented from flying, why doesn't can security council prevent these air strikes? well, why? because the russians and the chinese vetoed it. these are russian jets. the arab and islamic world must stand against russia. we must boycott russia, we must consider russia our number one enemy. i repeat, says forward draw by, we must consider russia our number one enemy. it is russia and china who

prevent that, and then he also points the finger on, against iran. so here is the list, the enemy list for the global islamist/sunni movement. russia's enemy number one, iran is and china -- iran and china. this is a major confrontation, ladies and gentlemen. this is no joke. and as steve and bob said, we are in an ongoing sunni insurrection in north caucuses. it started as a national liberation struggle with primarily secular leadership in cher chechnya. then by '96 that movement was hijacked by islamists, people like -- [inaudible] and others. and today the rhetoric, the narrative, the garb, the tactics are all jihadi islamist tactics.

and while i don't agree that it's really spilling over into that tar stand as my colleague suggested because two muftis were -- one was killed and one was severely wounded, and there is islamization and radicalization. tartar stand is the, praise allah, not there yet. but in places like pakistan, this is a day-to-day struggle. it's a slog in russian. law enforcement and local civilians and the pus limbs and sheikhs -- muslims and sheikhs and muftis are killed by the radicals. so russia has a serious problem on its hands with that. um, beyond that a lot of analysts point out that for putin and for the russian government foreign intervention in a situation where there's an insurgency or even civilian mass

protests you should the slow -- under the slogans of democracy for intervention in a situation like that is a big taboo, it's a no-no. and is that's why they want to support the syrian regime against this civilian insurrection. and let's not forget, this is in syria -- and we didn't mention that -- a minority rule by the alawite group, by the sect, if you wish, that is close to shia over 80% of the population which is sunni. and somehow the russian leaders and the russian analysts tend to disregard it or don't give enough weight to that. and i really don't understand how come that little but significant detail is being, is being ignored. i find when i talk to senior

russian officials, a woeful misunderstanding, a lack of knowledge about the middle east, about islam, repeatedly top russian leaders refer to their own terrorists as criminals, and the whole view was these are just bandit cans or some -- bandits or some groups that can be dealt through the prism of crime fighting that probably reminds some of us some other people in other countries who are making the same mistake. um, but what it does, probably the two main take-home points that i want to make, one is that this clash over syria changes the dynamics that we saw for the last 20 years in the middle east. it wasn't so bad.

turkey and russia were talking to each other, they had a thriving economic relationship. russia made inroads in many parts of the middle east including the gulf. they were selling weapons to sunni gulf arab states, russia improved its relations with israel, so things were not so bad. now we're in a situation where these alliances -- not formal alliances, but these relationships -- are unraveling. the relationship between russia and turkey, for example, is in its nader. it's in the lowest point in the last 20 years. so much for the declared policy of zero problems with neighbors. zero problems with armenia, zero problems with greece, zero problems with russia. i'm being sarcastic. turkey is a hereditary enemy of russia. there is a history there of over 300 years of incessant wars, and

i think both sides need to tread very, very carefully including in the caucuses as to how far this confrontation can go. um, the russians, i think, are finding themselves on the wrong side of the large middle eastern divide between shia and sunni. they're squarely aligning themselves with syria, and they essentially are the allies and the diplomatic sugar daddies of iran. and in the long term when you look at the resources, when you look at the population, it will be the sunni arabs who are going to be the prevailing force in this divide. finally, the relationship with the united states. we heard a lot about the obama administration pushing the reset button. of course, the reset was mistranslated, it was billed as as -- [speaking in native tongue] overload instead of reset, but

the syrian case as many other cases, as missile defense and can others demonstrate the depth of fear of the united states, the enmity and the inability to find common ground. theoretically, if we recognized the russian interests in syria -- the specific interest, not why they are geopolitical ideas and fantasies -- but, yes, there's a $4 billion market for arms in libya, there's x billion dollars in ongoing arms sales to syria, not clear to me who's paying for that, probably the iranians. there are rather minor petrochemical operation going on wherein russia was buying petrochemicals from syria and reselling them. there is the anchorage.

so all these things could have been discussed. instead, what we now have is a continuation, yet another episode of a confrontation that is ongoing between the united states and russia. but what it demonstrates to us is the enormity of failure of the reset policy. the reset policy did not provide any about for us -- any ability for us and the russians to resolve ongoing geopolitical conflicts and issues and, unfortunately, the syrian people, their blood is the price for that. thank you. >> all right. well, i have to tell you if you haven't been to these things before, you've just been treated to a boatload of expertise and, frankly, very intellectually even-handed ideas on an issue that i think is both underappreciated and weigh underreported -- way

underreported as an aspect of the middle eastern issue set. but this is now time for q&a. we can get our microphones moving. when i call on you, wait for the microphone. i'm going to exercise my prerogative to ask the first question. and this is for anybody to comment upon. is there a possibility of russia playing a positive role in syria starting from today, and as an additional thing, what's the worst case scenario of a role russia could play? ..

>> the worst possible case is, of course, an intervention that fails, which adds to the suffering and indescribable chaos of the current civil war, and also that spreads. those are -- i mean, either of those two situations are perhaps the worst possible case because that's -- >> it is spreading already. it's spreading to lebanon and jordan. >> there's not been violence in lebanon and jordan in the scale of syria. >> right. >> might be able to contain that, but if it spreads, it's an

epic disaster. at the same time, the middle east volatile, so many other places where you could have a fire begin, especially if one place meshes, as i think the russians are here. that's how i answer the question. >> okay. bob? >> yeah, i agree that russia's up likely to help us. the united states, we tried three times at the u.n., got three vow toes -- vetoes in return. best case, maybe i was in china a few months ago, and there was talk among the chinese elite talking about concentrating on domestic problems rather than an aggressive foreign policy. this might mean shifting away from russia, but for now, that's wishful thinking, but it is a possibility. i'll give you my worst case that could be unfolding before our eyes. nato guaranteed turkey's borders. in case what happened just a

week ago flairs up, more shelling, and, remember, as i said in my presentation, very head strong and decides even with all of the opposition domestically from the chp and turkey, nonetheless, he might escalate the conflict. the russians won't intervene. they said publicly they -- they will not guarantee russian military aide, whether they have the capability for it or not. we could see a nice war opening up that could drag in the ironnians. then is begins to escalate bringing pressure on the united states, i think. i mean, the real payoff, and here i agree with jim, and i'm a liberal democrat so i don't usually do it, but the stakes are so high that if the syrian

government falls replaced by a moderate islamist government or islamic government that the u.s. can work with, and here the u.s. should have spent much more time trying to cultivate this syrian opposition to create people we can work with, but if it falls, then not only syria, does assad lose and syria lose and this is a huge issue and benefit to the united states. this is why the iranians and russians in the asad -- assad regime are fighting so hard. i hope after the new administration, they might renew the policy, a new administration might. >> i should caution saying we should not delude ourselves that people who may take over syria if assad goes are liberal democrats in the style of

professor freedman. there are different people fighting in syria. there are some more or less secular. the syrian -- what is it called? people's army -- >> [inaudible] >> say it again -- >> free syrian army. >> free syrian army. the syrian council, the kurds, these are all rather secular people. some of them are refugees from the assad regime. on the other hand, there are islamists, and there are elements of al-qaeda who fought in iraq, and to get this right is very difficult. we saw how difficult that is in libya where one former senior al-qaeda figure was a security chief for tripoli, and, two, the tragic attack, and we heard from

the president himself, he did call it a terrorist attack the next day. the tragic attack that took lives of ambassador stevens and three other embassy personnel in benghazi, there are a lot of bad actors in syria. we saw this bad actors going across the syria-iraq border killing our people there. among the hard liners of the brigade and the brotherhood. among of the foreigners, and so there's no scarcity of bad actors there, and while i'm not agreeing with the russian analysis, the cautionary note about ever so-called arab spring, the arab chaos episode in every country brings to the

surface egypt, the jihadis in syria and libya, and bad apples in syria. everybody has to be careful and not to rush in with an intervention that can just clear the path for the worst actors. some of them may be, in many respects, worse than the current assad regime. >> just briefly on that. i agree with the thrust of what ariel says; however, as has been mentioned, you had the islamic takeover of a nationalist war against the russians in the north caucuses. you almost had the same thing happen in bosnia in 1995. you may be seeing that happen now in syria, but i don't think it's over yet. i think what has to be done, and i talked to ambassador ford about it, and he shared with me his frustrations about trying to unify the serian --

syrian opposition, but i think the u.s., after the election, will have to work much harder to unify the syrian opposition and work that the more secular forces that ariel mentioned to come out on top once assad goes. if you see what's happening now, you have more and more support going to the jihadi, and the question is, and here, i guess ariel and i may disagree a little bit, have we reached the tipping point yet where they control the opposition to assad? hopefully not, but we'll see. that's why sooner rather than later is my feeling. >> okay. questions, this gentleman right here. get the microphone, identify yourself, and ask the question, please. >> i'm a heritage member. are there circumstances under which the russians would consider military intervention in syria?

>> i can't see any that they would contemplate sending russian troops to syria and the operational obstacles are formidable. they have to get right air flight rights over turkey or open up the straits. i just don't see it happening, and what contingency justifies doing that so no. what i see is an expanded effort to engage in what you might call intelligence penetration and selling of weapons to, you know, various assad factions. if, you know, if assad himself or his situation is more desperate. as for russian troops, no. >> well, the question i'm asking myself when i can't sleep at night is at what point putin decides to use the threat of a nuclear intervention, and

clearly, the relationship, the dynamic, the balance of power is very, very different than in 1962, but as was said, it's not about geopolitics. it's about respect and who makes decisions. while i think the probability of a nuclear threat is very low, i do not think it's zero. even today and even over syria, having said that, in the next five to ten years if somebody asks me, i would say we may come to see a special taking into account a 700 billion russian military modernization. may come to see, maybe not 1962 style, maybe 1973 style, death con 3 rather than death con 2, threat by the russian federation to use nuclear weapons. >> okay. lady right here.

>> this is addressed to mr. phillips. what chance do you think if obama's re-elected, he resets the reset and considering the incredible threat and complementties, what is the -- complexities, what is the direction for the american policy? i think if prime minister of turkey is to be believed on the score and i'm not sure what signals president obama's sending him, but he's said he believes that like on some other issues that president obama is waiting until after the election to engage more forcefully on syria. i'm not sure that that will come to pass. i think there are strong reasons for the u.s. refraining -- definitely from getting involved on the ground unless, you know,

worse case scenarios come to pass like involving chemical weapons as you testified about, but i don't see the u.s., you know, in a direct military intervention. perhaps if there was greater cooperation with turkey, turkey went in on the ground, and maybe the u.s. might provide some kind of air cover or some kind of no fly zone, but my worry there is that if we get involved in a no-fly zone, that could be an open ended commitment in which will not be decisive as far as displacing the assad regime, but i think the administration will have to become more realistic about the situation, will have to look outside the u.n. framework if it's going to take effective action, and i think that would mean close cooperation with turkey which

has, not only close proximity, but one of the strongest vested interests in what comes next in syria. >> okay. all right, rights here in the front. >> thank you, i'm carl alto with the joint national committee. a question maybe about the intell wars. what's your perception on the reach of al jazeera, and i imagine assad controls the message in the country or brought into the region, al jayl jazeera, the western media or western services and as maybe a word about the kurds. >> okay. you can start. >> i have hard enough time keeping up with the u.s. government shutting radio liberties so i can't claim great expertise on al jazeera.

clearly, from what i watch on al jazeera, it's staunchly against assad, and rt, russia today, has the arabic service in russia. we, by the way, in the united states, don't have anything comparable to al jazeera. english, chinese, russian, any language, you name it, we don't have it. there is great credibility for al jazeera in the arab world. it's probably one of the highest watched channels so they both -- i was in preparation to this reading an article by the general editor who claims he read the syrian intelligence analysis obtained from a syrian embassy in moscow.

that was interesting saying the russians will never abandoned us, and they are willing to fight until the last alowit in syria. today, it's a multisource, multimedia environment. it's not just a tv, it's internet. we see activists quoted in every report extensively from damascus, lebanon, you name it so i think your question leads to ad broader policy issue. what is today -- what are we -- 11 years after 9/11? what is our information footprint? in the arab world, in the muslim world, and worldwide, our information foot print in the world where russia, china, you

mentioned al jazeera itself, qataris, the french, the german, you name it, spending 1.7 billion a year for operations. if i may, a separate issue that we didn't talk about, and that is syrian chemical weapons. that escalates intervention because nobody should trifle with chemical weapons, and when you read a report that the north koreans and the chinese help the syrians to produce, to secure, to manage their chemical weapon stocks when the fighting is all over the place and they're stocking up on diesel generators

in case they are under siege in the chemical weapon facilities? that scares even me. >> okay. >> say a word about the kurds. >> oh, sure. >> turkey's biggest fear is breaking up of turkey, the separation of the kurdish area from turkey, and they are very unhappy when the united states intervened in iraq because that strengthened the kurdish resistance, brought the kurdish rebellion back to life. they are now very worried that the kurds in syria, along that frontier, are going to join with the kurds in iraq, and that's going to make things even more difficult for turkey. now, the turks tried to balance this establishing good relations, economic and political, and the curdish leaders in the -- kurdish leaders in the north, but it's tricky business, and we

have not seen the end of it. that's one of the things on the minds of turks as they think about intervening or not. >> all right. >> adam brinkley, work here at heritage. this could be an off the wall question, but in terms of russian foreign policy, i wonder if anyone thinks russia may be operating whatever it means to do in syria on a slightly accelerated time schedule given putin's schedule for 2014 and he won't want bad pr. whether this could accelerate an intervention in syria to ensure the issue is cleaned up or cause him to back off because, again, they don't want everything clean by that big pageant. >> i vice president seen -- i have not seen anything. you can't -- i mean, if someone decides to intervene in syria, not the kinds of affairs you can

manage to a timetable. i think we learned that, and the russians certainly have. i don't think that there's a connection, and the real problem is not syria. it's the north caucuses, and it's entirely possible, some might say likely that even when the winter olympics open in 2014, the jihadists of the north caucuses will be active there. >> can i just add to that? there's a lot of attention also to the issue that in the last, what -- year, maybe two -- profile of the rights movement, ethnic cleansing in the 19th century from the caucuses became much more visible. there's a campaign, and the campaign is linked. the georgians tried that because

they didn't want the gravel going to such olympics, but they have a stronger case because they are from the region and i'm sure that that will make the -- is making the russians very unhappy. there -- i saw a construct that says something like if the syrian business is going on for a long time that will even further radicalize people in the north caucuses making the environment more dangerous. i don't know what i think about it with a little bit of luck they pull it off unless something really, really bad happens inside russia which i can want predict at this point. >> okay. what i'd like to do is give each of the speaker two minutes to give us the last take away you want us to have as we walk out

the door. >> i think in terms of u.s. policy, whoever is elected in november, must become much more realistic about what is going on inside syria and how best to approach it, and i have no problem with multilateralism, especially in an area of the world that's so volatile where you really need allies if only to minimize the foot print of u.s. forces on the ground, but realistically speaks, you can't get that going through the united nations and that we have to remember who our friends are, and that means israel. that means turkey, jordan, our nato allies, and working as much as possible to boost the syrian opposition in order to bring the

fighting to an end as soon as possible. i don't think a political settlement is likely, and although that's one reason iistn is holding out forlorn hope of getting russian cooperation at the u.n., but i think we have to look at a multilateral operations with friends and not with rivals, and in the long run, i think that's the way to go, not just in syria, but in broader foreign policy in general. >> mr. obama bet, and it helped in two ways. one, the sanction against iran which they went for, and it was an improvement of relations, limits in arms to syria, but putin is back 100% in control, and things look dire. that said, the russians have taken a huge gamble here, a very

big gamble, lining themselves with the shia crescent in the middle east, alienating sunni arabs, if not all the sunni islamic world. in the long run, in my view, this is a losing proposal, selling arms to iraq, which, by the way, bought arms from czech and the united states as iraqi are trying to balance their arms purchases doesn't make up for this. >> i think that the incoming administration, whoever it is, is going to have to rethink seriously what they want to accomplish in the middle east, what their capabilities are to be brought into alignment, and if the objectives are, which i

hope they are, which is assad be removed, and a more acceptable syria, i don't expect a liberal democrats here, but one willing to live in peace with neighbors and have a discussion with the united states and have a legitimate conversation come to pass, then it's going to have to work with allies and our intelligence capabilities that are going to have to discern to a greater degree than before whom we can work with and how we can best promote a government with people we can discuss the issues with on a reasonable basis, and at the same time, i think we're going to have to give up on the dream that any meaningful cooperation on not just on the syrian issue, but on regional security issues in general is possible with moscow except on a limited basis. yes, they're going to help us get out of afghanistan, but, at the same time, they don't want us to leave from afghanistan. they want us to leave, but they don't want us to leave. they don't want iran to have a

nuclear weapon, but they are not prepared to do anything to stop it from getting a nuclear weapon and keep business with iran. same with north korea. we could go on for days. the limit to what a, quote, "reset round 2" republican or democratic administration, are already in place regardless of what romney or obama want. we have to understand that and proceed from there. >> okay. >> the next administration has to realize a reset was a bunch of wishful thinking. we need to take a hard look at our interests in the middle east, broader, not just in the eastern mediterranean known in the arabic narrative, not just syria, and i think the name of the game right now is iran. the iranian nuclear program, and if the price of stopping the iranian nuclear program is having the regime in iran

getting a blow, blow inside iran for losing syria, i wish them strong debate to who lost syria, than be it. we need someone who understands geopolitics, not just as theory, but practice. when i look at the current administration, i sometimes wonder about that. >> all right, ladies and gentlemen, i'd ask you to join me in thanking our pam for what was a -- panel for what was a rich discussion. [applause] we also thank the folks who came in on c-span2. have a wonderful day. thank youingthank youingthank y- thank you for being here at heritage. [inaudible conversations]

>> we have more live programming coming up here on c-span2. >> c-span bringing you live house and senate debates from around the country between now and november 6. tonight, the coverage takes you to indiana for a debate between rom congressman mix pentz, john graig, and the con tees tent on

the reality show, "survivor". we asked c-span viewers what they thought of the second presidential debate. here's some of what you had to say. >> every time the chance went to mr. obama, he always blamed the other individual and never said what he felt, what he wanted to do. he always said, you know, his opponent was doing this. his opponent wasn't doing that, and he never said what he would do. he always wanted to show the faults on everybody else. >> romney, every time asked a direct question, he always wants to comment on what the president

is doing wrong, and i think the president is doing a fine job and furthermore, at the end when obama we want over to shake romney's hand, romney won't even shake the man's hand. i think that's very disrespectful. >> every debate that goes on becomes more and more caricatured. we cannot get to specifics. we seem to be approached more and more from trying to one up the other candidate. tonight was disappointing to me. >> i noticed that both of the candidates, but romney in particular, seemed to be dodging a lot of questions by talking about what the questions may focus was on, say, on gun restrictions, but not actually answering the full question. >> president obama just completely embarrassed the presidency. i can't believe he's the president of the united states

with his body language, demeanor, and ability to answer the questions. can't even look mitt romney in the eye when asked direct questions. >> the president, this time, did, in my opinion, act more of a president. when it was out of hand, although he did, himself, get out of hand at times, i think he did it in more of a leadership role. >> i think the moderator in this debate did better than the moderator from the last presidential debate with keeping order and whatnot, but i think president obama keeps trying to play the blame game blaming what he inherited instead of going off his record. >> i've never seen a debate where the moderator determined the outcome. candy crowley, when they were talking about the attack in benghazi basically told mitt romney that he was a lie, basically on what the president

said about terrorism when clearly the statement was because of some cartoon character drawing the prophet, and she says that's right, and the crowd clapped. that was unpush for the moderator to interject. >> i watched the debate, and i watched it intently, and i walked away, again, thinking that mitt romney has never laid out any specifics. it's one thing to come up with these notions and place blame, but even when the moderator asked him to be more specific, he just couldn't. he just kept repeating what to me, and the people i was watching with, sounded like scripted answers. >> he asked obama about the pension, his own pension. he didn't answer. he turns against -- turns the other way. won't answer no questions

straight out. >> it's really wild to hear romney say that the government can't create jobs after he spent so much time arguing that the president was responsible for not creating jobs. i mean, the guy's got to say it one way or another. >> i liked mitt romney. he seemed to teeter off at the end. both candidates drifted away from the initial question as from the audience. >> answer the questions. quit telling me what the other guy's not doing, but what you're going to do. i feel as an american citizen, we have to hold them accountable. we let them say and tell anything, and we sit there and believe it. if you set on one candidate or the other, something's wrong because both playing the same act, doing the same role. tell us way you're going to do. lay it on the line and let us make a decision. as we follow the candidates on the road to the white house, watch and engage with c-span.

a reminder the third and final presidential debate is monday from boca raton, florida focused on foreign policy. coverage starts at 7 eastern on c-span, after the debate, we'll get your reaction with your phone calls, tweets, and facebook comments. in january, tax cuts signed into law by president bush and obama scheduled to expire and federal spending cuts of $1.2 trillion over a decade scheduled to take effect in january. there was a forum at the museum here in washington on this so-called fiscal cliff. up next, hear from democratic congressman from pennsylvania alson schwartz and peter roskam.

>> thank you for joining me and the audience here. up for consideration, billions of dollars worth of tax provisions up for extension as well as the bush era tax rates, not to mention the sequester and possibility of another debt limit discussion. rather than on opening on grim talk of the obstacles, but i want to start with the possibilities. starting with congresswoman schwartz. where do you see the area of greatest potential, commonground, and compromise. >> good morning, pleased to be with you, and to, pete, good morning. larger than life here right next to us. [laughter] you look great. always good to know. [laughter] i do appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion. obviously, it's an interesting time to have the discussion given that we have an election in three weeks from today, and so what happens in that election

obviously will have an impact even though we'll be the same players in december as we are, obviously, in congress now, but i do think it has an impact on how we move forward and what we leave for after the new year and what we actually get done. i'll say i start with the fact that we ought to get something done at the end of the year. whether we can go -- do a grand bargain, care for the things we have to do, i feel strongly we have to make some decisions at the end of the year and set ourselves on a past to -- path to a bigger discussion and maybe really some clarity. let me just say that i think all of us, democrats and republicans, have recognized we're facing serious challenges, and that we should not just punt again for a few months. from the point of view of myself and democrats, we know we have tough choices to make, and we kneel strongly that we can make

those choices, but we start with a real understanding, and this is not just rhetoric, but an understanding that we what want and need to do is build economic opportunity, and that starts with the middle class and building the middle class, and we understand that. it starts with new revenues. that is absolutely important. the result cannot be revenue neutral even though many of us agree, corporate taxes, we want the corporate rate to come down and eliminate some of the special provisions, but we, as democrats, already committed, voted for, and engaged in $1 trillion spending cuts over ten years and another $1.2 trillion either through sequester or alternative should we be able to come up with that for deficit reduction and to grow the economy. we now need partners in this, the republicans, to agree to

some revenue. it's simply, as you know, not possible to get to deficit reductions and to meet the obligations without it. it is -- it's a partnership we've not had yet. what our choices do matter and so just to be clear, again, we are priorities, and conditions are that we start by recognizing that we have to strength p and grow the middle class, protect seniors with medicare and social security, that we have to make smart investments to grow the economy in the long term, and this we should do no harm in the short term economic growth because we still are coming out of a very deep, very broad, troubling recession. to assure economic competitiveness, we understand we start with this that we have to ensure skilled work force, that we have to infrastructure matters in terms of roads and bridges and rail and broadband,

in terms of economic competitiveness, that we do need access to low cost, clean, domestic energy sources, and that we need to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, and that we do have to help ensure that our businesses are economically competitive and the tax policy in a global marketplace and tax policy affects that. that's the starting points. i think there's room for compromise and discussion. there always is. we are members of congress; we know that. we can't get into this debate and be successful if faced with rigid ideology, no compromise, no way forward. we have to be willing to really look at all of what -- all of the tax proposals, all of the probabilities of revenue and spending cuts to get to both deficit reductions and economic growth. >> but to the specific question of areas of commonality, what

are the most fertile areas? >> well, i think one of them, for sure, is we could move forward on some of the things we agree on. we agree on middle class tax cuts, you know, the bush tax cuts for those for middle class americans, let's get that done. let's get done things we know we can do. we also do agree on the sgr and the fact something i've workedded on quite a bit that we cannot cut medicare reimbursements for physicians by 30%, that e we should repeal the sgr and replace it. i wrote legislation to replace it and actually had discussions with republicans and democrats about it, really close to and understanding where we ought to get to to reduce costs. let's deal with the sgr, the middle class tax cuts, create that, two places we could go, and i think on the corporate side, we actually, in some ways,

that's easier for us to deal with than on the individual tax side so if we all agree that we should examine tax expenditures that are unnecessary that don't stimulate growth not necessary for innovative industries of the future that are outdated, let's get rid of them and lower the tax rate. the individual side, it's harder, but not impossible to deal with as well. i think those are good places to start and would be remarkable if we could make some decisions and create a path moving forward. we have a path for big bargain, and i'd like to see it, but three weeks in december to get it done, i think it's tough to get all the details done. >> we'll get to the odds in a second. >> okay. hopefully the election shows we have some sharedded vision on

this. i want a chance to talk about the areas of common ground you see. >> well, i think the areas of commonground are two-fold. one is there's a false premise out there that says, well, we don't need more revenue somehow, but it's out among g.o.p. circles, and i think mitt romney debunced that largely. president obama created a strong argument in the last debate saying you believe there's no need nor more revenues. mr. romney said no. president obama said that's not correct. it needs to come to growth and have a large discussion on creating a growth agenda. senator wyden and others had been voices in the past on the democratic side that articulated a strong vote agenda, and there's a commonality there. the other components, though, where there is a great deal of

common ground is the high level of dissatisfaction with the current path. there's nobody -- there is no voice today deafing the status quo so if you take that attitude, and you look now of what the ways and means committee has done in the last 18 months, they can't gavel together a series of meetings for chairman of the committee, hearings, and really a wide ranging discussion, and if you were to drill down into a single word the theme of those hearings, it was the theme that allyson mentioned a couple minutes ago, and that is competitiveness. how do you create within the united states thee most competitive path jurisdiction in the world? what does it look like? how do you emulate it? in the opening remarks, there was an illusion essentially to the idea, didn't speak to it

explicitly, but as worldwide american companies are in the position to pursue 95% of the world's consumers outside of the united states, there's a recognition that the u.s. tax code should be moving with them on a platform to do that, to compete effectively. i think the area of commonground is a recognition of two things. number one, we need more revenue. if the democrats are open to how the revenue comes about, great. you know, my view hats always been, look, if you get the money that satisfies the obligations, that's an area of commonground. let's move forward on that basis, and i'm glad to hear allyson is not just sending the party dogma. the dogma is from people like patty murray wanting to go over the fiscal cliff for the sake of raising taxes. that's an absurd argument, actually, and i'm glad to here

allyson is not defending that. the other thing, though, is this level of dissatisfaction, this level of our tax code that literally we have an army of people in the united states that have to be hired in order to comply with our own tax code saying we have 1.2 million people who are in the compliance side. we have 1.4 million people roughly under arms in the united states so it's not an overstatement to say that we need an army to comply with our own rules. those two areas,s -- ed -- the need for revenues and simplicity is an area of commonground to begin to negotiate. >> you mentioned patty maury and threats of fiscal cliff jumping, if you will, and we heard that threat from both democrats and republicans in some form. how big a risk is there or just an opening gambit,

congresswoman? >> i don't think we'll go over the cliff. i think we'll figure it out. i certainly hope so. again, we need compromise, and we need to be able to get some revenues, and, i mean, pete said is partly true and not so true. all of us would love to be able to say we'll get revenues to economic growth. the problem is if the plan is to reduce taxes for the wealthiest and hope for economic growth, we did that for ten years and that got us in a mess. you might have noticed that. actually, what we have done in the past got us in a mess which was higher deficits and actually not more jobs at all. i think the real question is what do they really mean by that? it's a really good line. we also believe that we are going to eventually gsh -- economic growth is a part of how to raise revenues, but is that enough without any details about how we get there?

>> well, i think -- >> if it is just about lowering taxes for the wealthiest, and we've done that before, we run risk of how to get where we need to get to that if reare serious about reducing the deficit and have a path for long term growth. >> it's important to recognize what we are talking about. the fiscal cliff is not talking about lower taxes for everybody. it's an event where taxes are going to go up, and so the entire question is what's the impact of that tax hike for the very middle class that we are interested in defending? i think there's a strong argument that, look, particularly as it relates to if you raise passes at the individual level, you i'm sure it is going to have an adverse impact op their willingness to take on more risk, more employers, and to do the types

of expansion that everybody recognizes is necessary so there's a false argument that's out there that says this is somehow cutting taxes. no, it's not cutting taxes on anybody. right now, we're trying to avert the largest tax increase in american history. >> let's keep with the middle class theme and revenue on it. one the more interesting things to emerge this month from the presidential and vice presidential debates was the statement last week by vice president biden using the $1 million threshold rather than $250,000 that the white house has been using. where is the democratic caucus on that threshold, congresswoman? >> he talked about that, and i can say -- which i think shows room for discussion here, but -- and, you know, some -- look, i actually mostly have been using the $250 # ,000 threshold finish family income, and as you know, that takes care of a whole lot

of americans and small businesses. that's 97% of small businesses would not see taxes go up. when pete talked about affecting small businesses in the community, actually 97% are taken care of unless there's businesses that are 499 employees making millions of dollars and, you know, post deduction income, net income. i think that that is a discussion that we can have. look, two years ago when we had the discussion, i actually proposed $500,000 as the place that we could actually go. we're serious about deficit reduction and think we need more revenues, thinks it matters in terms of future economic growth to the businesses and to our workers that we invest in education and innovation. we think they're an infrastructure and that it matters for us to meet obligations as the country and

create certainty and predictability for corporations in terms of tax policies. those ought to be concerns as well. you know, making sure taxes don't go up for 99% of americans or 98% of businesses in this country is a good threshold. if there's particular concerns, let's talk bout that, but i think it is -- if we're going to get to where we have to get to, we have to understand that the rhetoric about hurting small businesses is really not true since they, even at 250,000 or 500 or a million, my goodness, we're not talking about small businesses at all. >> congressman? >> okay, assume for the sake of argument that, you know, that everything allyson said is true. [laughter] there's historically been a

reluctance on the part of both sides of the aisle to raise taxes. in other words, both sides say there's a hand ringing nature and people say let's raise taxes as a very last revenue, a very last gesture. that should be the last thing we should do, and so we've been challenged implicitly on the g.o.p. side to say, all right, you don't want to raise the rates, what would you do? that's where i think it is so important to put this in the context of the budget that the house passed. not one, but twice authored by paul ryan with very significant numbers that are coming forward. in other words, here's the specifics. here's the details. this is the remedy. here's the way in which you do this without increasing a tax burden because, look, the increased tax burden at best is a side show. there's nobody with a straight face saying raising these taxes that the president's proposing is going to close the budget

gap. all it is is democratic party orthodoxy saying we have to continue to claim to do this. there's a great deal of ambiguity on the democratic side of the aisle on what the magic number should be. the president is saying it's 250. senator schumer saying at one point it was a million, and now he's not in favor of tax reform as we have come to understand tax reform. you got senator durbin that's said, well, let's extend this for six months and then use that as a bridge to tax reform, but what you see on the g.o.p. side is clarity, and unity and a plan that is not just bumper stickers, but it's articulated path los angeles -- language put in the united states senate. i think there is a real distinction between the two parties and visions on taxes. >> different views here so let's just say that what we see as

being able to offer options and flexibility and willing to engauge in the conversation and willing to make promise is you could see it as a lack of clarity which which is the way you see it because i think you're one to work with and hope to work with on this which is that, look, we want to make this work. you know, we're willing to have discussion. if you are concernedded # about small businesses, not families, but small businesses at the threshold, have a discussion about that. that's what tax policy's about. if we're going to discuss corporate rates and are we going to hang on to some that are important to corporate america to help them be competitive? i think research reap -- research and development matters. if not, let's discuss that. i think we have to be -- what

you see is the ryan budget as being clear policy where like what do you mean? there's a lack of information there. what is clear in the ryan budget, of course, is it's shifting costs to middle class americans. we know that. certainly it ends medicare as we know it. you know that. it may matter to you, it may not matter to you. maybe it matters to you personally i would think and to your parents, but that -- we see that as rigid ideology that, you know, the notion we can grow the economy, but can't tell you how, what it does is underminds what we do together as a government and means the proposal the way mitt romney's talking about it, the proposal -- you're right, all the republicans voted for,

does dramatic harm we believe to what the government has done in terms of meeting obligations, and that's true in medicare. it is true in terms of the kinds of cuts we would see in what we do that you rely on us to do, and, again, roads, bridges, highways, broadband, skilled work force, access to education, the health reform in bringing down the cost of health insurance coverage, i mean, clean energy, all of those things do not matter at all in corporate america that you live without government doing anything and so can middle class families. it's really not true; right? so if we go that direction, you may say, look, it lowers rates, but do we want this tradeoff? it's too strong a tradeoff for the american people to undermind to meet the obligation and to economic competitiveness in the future. it's finding the compromise that has to come from what really is

a wide divide you just heard even between pete and myself really moderate on both sides, we hope so, you know, in being able to say we know where we want to go on the tax code. we agree that the corporate tax code is complex, that we give tax deductions that are no longer necessary, that to go away because we can then lower the rate or used in another way that insent vises the future -- incentivizes the future and economic competitiveness you want and need. if we can get there, there's a notion they consider revenues, future economic growth. we consider revenue actual dollars coming into the government and economic growth, and without the dollars to meet our obligations, even as we cut government and we have, even as we look for cost containment everywhere, and we have, that we actually do still have responsibilities to each other

and to our economic competitiveness in the future, and we need dollars to do that. >> there is a great divide here, but it is not new. it's something we talked about for well more than a year or two years at this point, but there are dangerous undertopes here. things have become defining issues for both parties. the democrats raising taxes on the wealthy has be a defining issue, especially in the campaign. for the republicans, no new revel knew is a defining issue -- >> and more cuts, as a matter of fact. >> congressman, how is that going to affect your ability to work towards a deal by the edged of the year? can you move off of what's not been only a rhetorical platform, but affected the way you negotiate. >> okay. so one of the premise of your question though is that somehow the g.o.p. is arguing don't have new revenues. this was debated between the candidates the other evening. i made the point earlier.

i accept the premise we need renews. we object the premise the only way to get revenue is raising taxes making them -- i would argue -- if democrats say, look, we're interested in more revenues too, here's the path way the republicans described, we think it makesceps. we are willing to listen and learn. there's growth assumption in president obama's budget. there's growth assumption that the house articulated, the house minority put forward. there's not been any budgets, obviously, from the senate, but there's growth assumptions. go in and explore those. somehow this notion that the only way to get more revenue for the federal government is by raising taxes is a choice that we don't think is robust, and historically it's one people have come to reluck at that

particular timely, and good -- reluctantly, and we say good news, let's not go there as the first place, but explore every other conceivable opportunity. that's a chance to look at the growth model, there it is, and let's pursue that. the bottom line is the election on november 6 has a huge disposition on this question, and it's my hope that we can forego drama around the fiscal cliff, see sequestering alternatives that the house has done, bridge and extend rates for another year and move this debate into tax reform, but the november 6 election is consequential in terms of the energy from the election and the trajectory in which the public wants to go. >> one second, sticking with this for a minute. i understand the argument for revenue via growth, but how

strong will the no new tax revenue positions be during the lame during session within the republican caucus? >> very strong so you heard from the president in the past that, you know, obviously, the president, if the legislated -- obviously has a second term, if not re-legislated, he's president until january 20th until inauguration day, but we heard president obama in the past make statements on tax rates, and have a great deal of flexibility when the time comes down to it and based on mixed signals from the democratic side and the clear signals from the republican side that you will, you know, the idea that i think president obama signs an extension of the current rates or anotherrier, in my opinion, is more likely true than not

true based on past conduct. >> yeah, it is true that none of us -- i say for myself, we don't want to raise taxes. .. is not going to undot economy and bringing in important revenue to meet our obligations. that's what the president proposed. that seems somewhat reasonable way go. did did not work under the bush years. let's do what we have to already

agree on to extend middle class tax cuts. we don't believe in trickle down economies. it hasn't worked by making sure -- again, we believe in making money. we are happy with the fact that americans -- we want to encourage more americans to be successful and make money to be prosperous and pay a taxes in to what we do jointly. and that's a difference. we're not -- use pete's terminology. we're not raising anyone's taxes. renot extending tax cuts on a small group of americans who have additional money to potentially give us a few extra percentage points because we need the money. if we didn't, if the deficit wasn't an issue, the republicans don't care about the deficit, that's not real to them, we would be able to still do what we believe has to happen for economic growth. put more money in middle class american's pockets they buy for products and companies will meet

that demand. that's the way we look at it. unless you have consumer demand, then in fact it doesn't matter what kind of gifts we give you. it makes you richer. it doesn't make you want to make more products. it's a different economic philosophy. we think under the bush years, we did actually end up with a troubled economy and deep recession. that if it worked the principles worked, that that economic growth that pete is talked about, the mitt romney is talking about, that paul ryan is talking about worked we wouldn't in the mess we were in four years ago. i believe you believe that if we want to get serious about competitiveness and corporate america in the future, you have all talked to me about the fact you would like to see more lower rates. you want to be more competitive. we have to bring down the cost of health benefit. we are doing that by demanding better -- and cost containment in the health care sector across

both private and pubic sector. you need cheaper energy and a skilled work force. you need airports and racials that work. and that you can't do it without the things on your own. that's what you have said. you're willing to give up some of the tax deductions for that if not all of them. the notion that the concept which we have lived through several decades now if you reduce the taxes more so on the wealthiest americans, leave middle income americans on their own, with fewer dollars their pocket, if you hold them hostage again, by not extending the tax cuts, if you hold corporate america hostage by not actually reaching agreement on taxes for the future, it puts you in a much more difficult position to do the kind of planning and growth that you would like both here in the united states with what we would like and the work you do in selling products across the world.

i think the rhetoric is really just that. unless you're willing to decimate the federal government and the obligations and expectations you and our middle class families expect. >> if i could. i think there was a flaw in the argument that allyson was are techlating. [inaudible] on the one hand, the argue. says if you raise the taxes the money is somehow going to be the remedy to increased infrastructure and broadband going to -- [inaudible] and the money will go to bridge the gap. on the other hand, balancing against that is the study with -- if the tax rises expire, what will happen? it will cost 700,000 jobs. look, i'm calling you. i'm talking to you today from the state of illinois, which is the state how not to governor.

govern. [laughter] [inaudible] out of illinois our neighbors in wisconsin and indiana and iowa and ohio and michigan are doing much better than us. we have got higher than average unemployment. you have more per capita debt than any state of the union. this is the playbook. i made the argument before when president obama was doing the private sector doing fine. you can't blame him. he's using the state of illinois as the foundation point. what we're saying is let's not -- [inaudible] rate with, you know, by two weeks of revenue under the obama current spending trajectory. fall in to that trap.

when they asked bill clinton should you raise tax, he said no. about a -- [inaudible] until the white house walked him back. even president obama when he was asked that in egg elkheart, indiana. do you race taxes and president obama was basically making the judgment that i have been making that -- [inaudible] now in the current position, obviously, but i think he got it. now are we not in the recession right now? technical we're not. we're growing over just above the surface of the water. we're growing at about 1%. let's not do anything is a tender economy back in my nor jeopardy. i don't think people with the straight face can make the argument the remedy to grow the economy and creating a -- [inaudible] and people willing to invest more is raising taxes. >> look we don't think that's the end all deal.

we think we thought have it on the table. it won't hurt the economy. we have been saying i think we greed on this. the economic recovery, you know, it's been seen economic growth over the last 32 months. it's not as strong as we would like. passenger's side better than we were four years ago. losing jobs, 700,000 jobs a month. we like to be growing faster, of course. it's a slower recovery. it is a recovery. we would agree with you there's a lot of openness on the democrats and the white house what we do in the next year pretty careful. and what we're looking with a is a long-term discussion. do we extend how do you we handle tax policy, look, how do we goat serious discussion you want us to have? [inaudible] long-term discussion is something we would like to to. it's getting -- past the bush tax cuts. extend the ones for the middle

class and not the wealthiest americans. it's not going hurt the economy. it's going to bring in some dollars. let's have the serious conversation about individual and corporate taxes for the future. >> the long-term discussion has to talk about the other side of the ledge. we need to talk about entitlement questions. we have to go questions and come back and come back and talk about entitlement and the flexibility the caucus would give assuming elected president obama that were on the table two years ago. i have a question here. >> retired -- congresswoman roskam how can you come to a comprise without being the one congresswoman that would have to break the prejudice to come to the comprise with the democrats? >> right. if you've been listening. i'm not contemplating. what i'm saying is you pursue revenue, they are abundant,

there's a possibility of getting them. the likely hood it was debated in the other night when mitt romney spoke directly to president obama about this. the president said you don't know want eve revenues? romney said i want revenues but the way -- [inaudible] that's been the conversation that allison and i have been having for the past twenty minutes. [inaudible] i think -- i don't plan on raising taxes on anyone. >> another question? [inaudible] >> not extending tax cuts? >> breaking the pledge. >> there's so many double negatives going on in my head right now. [laughter] >> i know. they give you a little flexibility to reach agreement. a couple of -- allyson. you know me. i would love to work on agreements. >> can i followup on this? >> the congressman, isn't your pledge to the citizens of illinois and not to one person. that's one thing that i lo the of people who aren't in favor of the pledge can't understand that you should be serving your

constituents and not one man. >> i appreciate thed a mononation, i appreciate the encouragement. i've been elected three times to congress. i'm looking strongly right now, i think. the voters in the sixth district of illinois are going to make that determination. thank you. >> another question from the audience? >> all right. let's go to the question of entitlement. let's assume for a moment that president obama wins re-election. how much flexibility to deal on entitlement will the democratic caucus allow him? >> i would say it starts with our commitment to make the promise of medicare and social security. that has to be the beginning of the debate. it -- we will not accept turning medicare to a voucher, premium support whatever you want to call it. it is a nonstarter for us. we feel if the beginning premise is that we will not shift the cost essentially completely

almost, you know, the increase in cost to individuals seniors and their families, then i think we can have a discussion. i think we also have to begin the discussion with the fact that what has been said by both mitt romney and paul ryan and all of the republicans is that the affordable care act hurt medicare is also a nonstarter for us. -- they know the reality is. one, the republicans and paul ryans use the same $700 billion in cuts to insurance company and providers in their budget. and in fact, what we have done and since did put yourself on a path toward greater solve sei in medicare, containing the rate of growth and cost in medicare to improve delivery system reforms. so if we can start with the discussion of how can we best reduce the cost in medicare. which is through delivery system reforms twhab is important to all of us. that can have an effect on the private sector and reducing

costs for health coverage for all americans. it's got start with a different premise. we are far apart in the premise. and republicans, way have been republicans in congress walked away from the original vote for the ryan budget. then they voted again and many of them have embraced the notion ha what we should do is end medicare as we know it, and make it save the collars for the government. and leave seniors and their families more on their own. $6 ,000 in the first year or two, obviously, going up from there. i think that's nonstarter. but i do think if we could reach agreement, that's a big if on the fact that medicare is important seniors and the families, it can work, we can have the dollar to make it work. it are there ways to ensure that it is, you know, we actually make sure it's sol solvent for years and years and years. i think there's discussions we could have. it's not yet a discussion we can have. >> common, where do you need to

see democrats move on medicare? >> well, i think that, you know, [inaudible] republicans care about head care and make sure it's solvent. good news. we care about medicare and make sure that it's solvent. the challenge is that medicare as we know it will end in twelve years. that is a them to in which the medicare trustees have testified in the committee that medicare will reach insole vently sei. look, there was a serious effort on the part of several major initiative over the past couple of years to bring clarity to the issue. we saw -- [inaudible] the committee, the negotiations between the president around the so-called grand bargain. i think what has to happen is president obama needs to step in to the future -- [inaudible] what he has to do is in the -- [inaudible] another place a recognition that the president had about not

embracing the house g.o.p. approach, but recognizing that that program, that the fact that 10,000 seniors or 10,000 -- are retiring every 24 hours. and health care inflation is -- regular inflation significantly and that's continuing to happen notwithstanding with the passage of the electric law. i think what has to happen is president obama needs to step in in a way that he has not done that in the past. now, that's been the interrogatoritive. he's the president of the united states. we want to have a transformational moment of the country. we want to come together around the shared premise. it is the title of the program that are largely driving the -- and crowd out the oh things and being the president of the united states needing to pay a leadership role. it's not a leadership role that the country has seen from president obama for the past

four years. good news, i served for four years with president obama when he was a state senator. we were together in springfield, illinois. what i saw there was an attribute in barack obama as a state senator where he was able to really cross party likes in a sincere way. we worked together on controversial death penalty to form legislation that we were able to pass on to the state senate and house unanimously. it was signed by the governor. i use that is a touch point on president obama came to the house republicans retreat a couple of years in baltimore, and i said, mr. president, that style of governing is to so successful and he goes back to that background and i know he has it in him. we haven't seen it. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> president obama has created -- has lead by being willing to

talk to both sides of the aisle. the number of times he invited republicans to the white house. the number of times who he said i don't want to dictate how you do it. this is the goal let's talk about it. this the fact that president obama's leadership style. you both say it's not leadership. because he actually didn't dictate to continue. exactly how to do things and you praised him for being willing to be open to find the common ground. i think that's an important acknowledgment you just made. it's great. the fact that is that we do recognize that there are serious costs under medicare, 10,000 new seniors a day. there are probably some in the audience who are baby boomers. in fact when paul ryan said it won't be there for him, he's actually not correct. really the baby boomers are not going to last forever. we're going try. [laughter] embrowns it is the fact that this is a demographic and per capita problem. you know, the demographics are daunting to the next twenty five years. you have another 40 million

seniors coming online. we go away at some point. again, it's hard for me to acknowledge that. for those who are 35 or 45 now, that is not going the same problem. so let's look at the reality of medicare actually being a lower cost in a lot of ways than private health insurance. that in fact we have seen the rate of growth in health care not grow as quickly as it if. we were seeing double digit growth doubling the cost of companies that pay health benefits and government's high cost. we need reign that in. are ways to do that. we want to be very aggressive it, as a matter of fact, and we are. so we need to also make some conditions here. and again, the conditions are that medicare has worked and social security has worked for senior in the country. it is something whether you're already over 58 or 55 or 45, you actually do anticipate and

planned for medicare being there for you. it would be enormously disruptive in the country to have it go away. to shift those costs to the families. we need to recognize that. so do we work together make sure that we can ensure to afford pay for it. prescription drug coverage who was paid for under george bush. many are glad -- how do we fill in the gap if the affordable care act is repealed on day one the way mitt romney says. all that cost in prescription drugs go back on to seniors of individual families, and that we have not closed that gap. so, look, trts a huge divide here if republicans are serious if they are serious about working with the president and democrats to truly preserve medicare. not say we are formaryland -- for medicare and turn it over to individual seniors. i think there are ways to have the discussion about to how contain the rate of growth and

cost per capita and deal with what is going to be a serious problem from the -- for the next twenty five years. >> congressman roskam, you get the last word. >> i think there are so many situations that i would agree with. let me talk about what i do over here. where we have an opportunity is for president obama to be willing to reevaluate how he conducted himself under the first presidency -- [inaudible] what do i mean by that? president obama that i termed with when we were negotiated various things, it was very much a negotiation. so i was able to see it coming from a conservative point of view, i was able to go to the -- organization and push them and say, look, we need your help. and to forth. if president obama view coming from the liberal point of view, he was able to go to the defense bar and the aclu and push that. together we were able to do

something that was good. barack obama -- redefined by partisanship. now the definition of partnership you vote for my -- vote for you -- what i [inaudible] there are coming out of the [inaudible] it has been in a lot of chatter but when it comes down to it, it is you vote for my stuff. [inaudible] he was disappointed and frankly surprised that there were no republican votes in the stimulus plans. it turns out on reflection when you -- [inaudible] largely under reform democrats are not running on the stimulus. i'm not interested in -- what i'm saying is that yeah, i think we need to see an attribute in president obama that is clearer, that leads, that recognizes in john boehner, he has a willing partner to negotiate. i hope he learned from the experience from the debate and

the whole high stakes adventure and able to say, look, we're not going to do that again. i recognize, boehner, the type of somebody to negotiability with and i can work with. and -- saying just vote for my stuff. it's not very persuasive. >> all right. thank you both for coming. we got close to the president and went back to the -- couldn't get there. so we work to do, pete, we really do in moving beyond the rhetoric and hopefully the election will make absolutely clear what the american people are hoping for us to do the way we tackle the fiscal cliff and future tax reform. thank you both for joining us. [applause] [applause] >> we talked in the what's panel a lot about 2013 and what's going to happen i want to go back to the end of the year. what do you both feel like is likely to actually happen then,

and what are some areas where you can see a comprise happening? >> doug, you want to start? >> sure. i think it's important to recognize that really three different issues involved, and the first is the literally the fiscal cliff. the end of the tax increases and spending cuts that will happen on auto pilot. which i view as a tremendous threat to the economy. it's a recipe for recession. we have a weak economy that is moving side ways a the moment at best. and that's the issue we're going to face in the lame duck. that's the debt limit. it's going to be a february, administer issue. my own view you should keep it as far away from the fiscal cliff you can. there's nothing good that comes of intermixing the two. the third, the deal. which is we have to have a deal for the fundamental tax reforms and entitlement reforms so we have a debt burden sustainable for the future and -- we don't have that. so the lame duke, just focus on those. you shouldn't intermix the debt

ceiling and pretended you're going get a deal. i think that's a mistake. and the whole job of the fiscal cliff to spring 2014 without a self-inflected recession. it's about being a good steward to the economy. we know that the payroll tax holiday is essentially gone. there's an agreement on both sides. we know there are taxes under affordable care act going to be put in place. it puts the premium on not doing anymore damage, which means so you to somehow have a tax agreement that keeps current rates to next year. you have to deal with the sequester in particular, and not face dray draconian cuts. these are bad policy on top of there. that's the lame duck. that's the agenda for lame duck. nose two thing balance deal can you make on taxes and replaces the sequester with longer term cup cuts. i think they'll get something done. i can't say it's -- or ten as the -- but, you know, it's an

agenda that is manageable. two things. they have to do it or they're going to be responsible for a congregation nayly induced recession. they shouldn't do that. so i think, you know, there's a deal to be done. what we have seen is the politics of let's play chicken with taxes and spending. it's out there. that's what makes me nervous. >> even the panel, the first panel so much was focused on tax policy and the bush tax cuts and sort of the disagreement there on who you should tax and how you should earn revenue. where do you see people coming together at the end of the year to cut some deal? what are the contours of that, steve? >> i think the main contour, they will take a look at the election at what absolutely has to be done and figure out how to get it done by the end of the year. i mean, as john buckley alluded to, the history of lame duck accomplishment is not very grand. [laughter]

and -- [inaudible] the only task that absolutely has to be done by the end of the year is fixing the amt by 2012. and i'm -- i've been a skeptic for a long time about lame duck accomplishments, and if i were to bet, i would say they would fix the amt for 2012 and not much else. >> if you lowered my expectations. [laughter] , i mean, the reality is, i mean, i actually agree with a lot of that. the reality is that it is in the dna of congress to kick things down the road. they are good at that. whoever is advantaged by the election, however it plays out is want to kick 2013 anything fundamental. the lame lame duck is all about both politically and

economically getting to 2013. i think they need to do more than that. i don't see them doing the amt the southwester. -- sequester. it's a serious policy issue. you can't manage federal agencies and take 10 or 013% cuts across the board. this is literally disgraceful. so, you know, it would be nice if the congress didn't, you know, -- nondisgrace for once. >> okay. and ?erve the room is observed it, if you they're going take it. and it happened even at events we were forcing mechanisms, you know, budget control act, it's a perfect example. the supercommittee had the opportunity to do big things. but the fact that the sequester was part of, meant their failure didn't really have any consequences.

and that's where they ended up. >>, i mean, you said, i'm cures you to hear your thoughts. steve was a tax consult on simpson bowls and the supercommittee. i feel like you have seen a lot of the negotiations over the key issues behind closed doors then a way a this lot of us haven't. so what are some of the things that you saw behind those closed doors where you see they could strike a big deal next year or deal with some of the issues. >> well, i think it's kind of the old washington style, you're always one clarifying event away from having the situation suddenly come in to focus. and, you know, over my last three years of sitting through all of these meetings, i sat in a bunch of the gang of seven health reform meetings too. >> of course. >> and all those negotiations were, you know, a step or two forward and a step or two back almost on a daily basis. gang of six another example. you know, they would end the evening on a high note, there

would be phone messages waiting in the morning saying, wait, i want to think this through again. and we, you know, we have got tonight -- got, to the point where congress loves how it's time to make tough choices. they always seem to have some interior mechanism for not crossing that threshold. >> if the debt -- i'm sorry. >> i think i agree. it is not -- the unique thing about this area is, you know, we're out of time, and so they're going to have to do things. it's a great irony which you run for president now. you think about what can do they want to do. president obama got elected he did what he had to. he had a big recession. it wasn't -- the key insight he can what he 0 to do. same thing is true with the next president. they have from january to august

to convince international capital markets the politics in the u.s. are not so introaken that we can make progress on the debt problems. if it doesn't happen they going to say enough. we'll get a downgrade get some capital market repercussion. that changes dynamic completely. what scares me is some members of congress don't care about that. i think that's the interest. if you take that seriously, it says we have to get a deal in 2013. that's hard work. we aren't a clarifying ebt away. the deal isn't going come from heaven. you have to clear the get to cothe hard work. nay realize we have to clear out the sequester cleat clear out the debt ceiling and get to work. we're out of time. >> you said we have basically from january until august to come up with something. why august? how are you setting setting that time frame? >> we're used to the tradition of you go home from august and you start running for re-election in 2014. so, you know, that's it. that's the clock. >> you feel like 2014 elections

will be the clock? that will make people doing things? >> my point is simply that, you know, it has been the observation of the agencies in particular that the sus a large still vibrant economy with -- in capacity to fix fiscal problems and it doesn't because of politics have proven too toxic. they're going look at the honeymoon period of the administration whoever it might be and say this is the moment. clear and present danger. opportunity what do you? if the answer is nothing. they're going move. and i think any congressman who is looking to run in to get reelected in tbowrt they better do what they need to early when they come back in january. >> if congress ends up a lot of these things come until the next year and debt ceiling comes up and it has to be dealt with by march. how is it going to affect the negotiation that are happening on the deal, tax reform.

>> it's hard. >> well, i mean, -- [laughter] >> connelling back to you. -- coming back to you. >> that's interesting when we come to that that's presumably we will dealt with the issue of sequester. you will a large number of members of congress talking about how harmful all of these cuts are. and then we get will goat debt ceiling debate where presumably many of the same members of congress will be trying to come up with new cut in this case are hope are not so dangerous. it can be a gear-stripping exercise for some of those people. it will be interesting to watch. that's for sure. >> yeah. >> whether he leave at event at this point. you can see more in the c-span video library. go to c-span.org. live to the atlantic counsel here in washington. we discussing on improvised explosive devices. as well as the threat in afghanistan. we will hear from lieutenant

general. this is just getting started. >> i don't think one can understate the importance of the issue particularly at the stage in the -- butt effects of the war on neighboring countries including pakistan and the ied that turned out a huge problem. we thought it would be useful to hear from the general on what the nature of the global threat is and what is being done to contrary. i will briefly give you a little background, and then open it up for an exchange with all of you.

general was commissioned in the infran try after graduation from the u.s. military academy in west point, in 1976. in addition to infran try assignments at the tactical level, he commanded that every grade from lieutenant colonel to liewngtd general. -- lieutenant general. he joined training center at fort polk. as a major general he commanded the major georgia. he served over three years in three separate -- in iraq where among the duties he commanded the multinational security transition command in iraq and nato training mission in iraq. he has a master disagree? degree in national security in washington and a graduate of the army command and general staff

college and school of advanced military study program. he has far too many awards for me to list, but you can see it on the chest. i think that should be where i will stop. delighted that he agreed to speak with us. general, the floor is yours. >> thank you. thank you for the introduction. other than the year i was commissioned, am reluck assistant to mention that as i get older. thanks for the opportunity, i see many familiar faces here. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss a little bit about this and how i framed my comments i would like to discuss within my organization briefly and what we do. how we see the current fight in afghanistan, and then how this is true truly a global threat and an enduring one. what we're doing about it, and briefly some thoughts about future capabilities that i think need to be retained. first of all, as you know, joint

ied defeat organization was created in 2006. and with some fairly unique capabilities we are solely focused on the ied and the device and the networkings that deploy them. in the war fighters is the customer. general mad does and allen, we have about 200 individuals forward in afghanistan down to maneuver battalion level. we have flexible multiyear funding. we are well resourced and rapid ebbing suggestion authorities that allow us to field capabilities with the goal feeling them in months if not and not years. the most important word in our mission is rapidly. that's why we exist. it we can't respond in a rapid manner, we should not exist. we prosecute our mission along three lines of operation. the first is training the force. all the sudden not discussedover thought about, but as we found

out, the best a capability we have is a well-trained soldier or marine. when i arrive if you ask me what the greatest gap in capability was. i would tell you it was training. when which we worked hard to fix. the second operation is defeating the twos. focusing on the guys, how to defect it and mitigate the affects and such. that frankly, carries a large amount of the funding. we must focus on that. by he defeating the device we limit casualties. however, the third line of operation attack the networking is the decisive effort. that is where you have an effect on the networking to supplies and everything that goes in to the deployment of the weapon. the current fight in afghanistan. the ied remains the weapon of choice, and it is enduring as a weapon of choice. and the last two years, ied

events increased 42% from about 3900 events in 2009 to about 16,000 events in 2011 and 2011 had the highest annual number of ied events ever. in 2012 is a little below 2007, i point out in june 2012 was the highest monthly level of ied events we have seen. overall, number of ied has remained high. there are some areas where i think we have seen improvement, and two critical areas that i look at are found and cleared. do we have the ability to find and clear the ied before they deployed against us. that has steadily improved from the last ninety days compared to the last period last year has increased 12 percent for the mountedded forces.

-- mounted forces. the second metric that i would point is the obvious one, casualties. casualties are below 57% below last year. last year's rate despite, as i said, the high number of ied. so we focused on limiting effective attacks either wounded in action or killed in action. many factors have contributed to what we see as progress in the fight. and decrees effectivenesses of ied and i'll just list a couple of them. first supplying lessons learned. what are we doing right? what is working, what is the enemy doing, what is the best practice is apply a that in the deployment training. equipment search, we fielded increased number of counter ied capabilities especially focusing on dismounted operation and the very vulnerable dismounted troopers. just a few numbers, we feel that

in the last ten months 1100 recon robots 210,000 sets of pelvic protection, more than 8,000 hand held devices to find metal, ground penetrating radar and other components of the ie derks, we have another 200 hand held devices that will be fielded before next fighting season. improvements to batters and external batter i are packs were hand held detected 200 of those in four months, it's a continuous process to field improvements to existing cammabilities -- capabilities. we repositioned eight airplane -- delivered an additional four systems to cussed on the ied and the component that comprised them. it it has been an equipment search. we are have also seen have an increase by metrics. collection and capability. dna, fingerprints and other indicators inspect is critical because through biomettics we can remove the greatest defense

these networks have that of anonymity. there's been a adjustments to tactics which is a continuous process. one i'll point out has been how we approach the clearance operations. tremendous focus on that. and also our commanders tell us that the increase in partnering operation with the african security forces. the found and clear rates are higher. they know what to to look for. what doesn't look like with the local population. when we -- finally we have great commanders and troopers on the ground who are refine tactics and adjusting tailoring the adjustment to the specific threat. as i look at the fight in afghanistan, i see two fights that we how we deal with. amounted fights and the second one is dismountedded and they have different threats and

require different capability. the mounted fight is command wire there's a individual end of a wire when he sees a vehicle a specific vehicle cross in to the danger area. he'll detonate the ied. largely using cull voters they can pack more explosives per greative net explosive weight they can he defeat the vehicle improvement. -- we have not seen any explosively foreign projectile thelet l weapon we saw in iraq. but we're seeing large amounts of explosives with a command wire. i look at that as the enemy's precision guided munition. one of the critical enable we fielded in the fight. airborne sensors of all fight. advanced vehicle optics, predetonation, robot and vehicle born ground penetrating radar.

now as i look at the dismounted operations, the ied we are mostly in the southwest and south that are used in the multil larger number ied. we have one incident a couple of weeks ago radius two to three pounds of explosive is devastating. again, the effective attack rates rates are down. dismounted troops and the found and clear rates continue to improve. the critical enable for the dismounted operation are hand held detectors. protective undergarment explosive line charges question shoot out a line of explosives and detonate those i long the path of movement. recon robots, dogs are qee in

the fight -- key in the fight. in talking about afghanistan, it's about homemade explosives. over 84% of the i, ed are used to comprised to using homemade explosive as the explosive charge. different than what we saw in iraq and different than what's seen in other locations. 84%, as i said are mom head explosive. more than 59% are ammonium nitrate based derived from a for the loyser. and this continues to be a problem. in the last ninety days, compared to the previous to same period last year, our seizures of homemade explosives have increased 133%. in the last ninety days, we have ceased 131 tons of homemade explosively largely the ammonium nitrate. this is the challenge in afghanistan. detecting and the flow of

ammonium nitrate. it's easily processed, and to an explosive it's done in being used increasingly around the world. that is a brief description of afghanistan. that is our focus everyday starts with a discussion of what took place in afghanistan and how we can attack it. but it goes without saying as was said this is a global threat. not exclusive to afghanistan. outside of afghanistan every month there are more than 500ied events. and since january 2011, there have been more than 10,000 global ied events occurring in over 112 countries. executed by what we judge to be more than forty regional or transnational threat networks. as of september, the top five countries ied incidents outside of afghanistan want first is pakistan. and our pakistani partners schusserred greatly from the networks and the weapons.

colombia, is second, india is third, and syria and somalia are in the top five also. but it's not just about the twoses. it is about the networks. and we see increase collaboration in corporation between the networks. for example, in africa we see the increase coordination between al qaeda and the islamic qim and al-shabaab in shoal ya in nigeria. collaboration and training and resources sharing funds and techniques and explosive materials. nigeria seeing a large search in ied activity. in 2010, they had 52ied events this area so far 218. somalia is similar growth. largely but not as drastic as nigeria. syria has a tremendous increase in ied activity in twch, syria,

we estimate had 338 casualties from ied. so far in 2012, 2,086 casualty finance has been a tremendous growth in syria. colombia and mexico also. so as i look at this, it's an enduring treat, i think both operationally to our forces and domestically here for decades. but as i said, it is not just about 9 devices. it is about the networks. and we see that ied as a weapon of choice along the threat continuing. everything from the lowest criminal smugglers, narcotics networks, all the way to the high end terrorist network and everything in between. these nexts are resilient, adaptive, and very agile. as i tell my friends, there are centers of excellence the virtual, flat, unem cum bert the. -- they seamlessly communicate

sharing recipe, tactics, procedures, and i think the way they communicate their command and control system is a huge strategic advantage for them. and we see the proliferation of techniques across the various networks. the explosively formed penetrators the projell tile we used -- we saw in iraq we see have seen them in the gaza strip and seen them start to appear in somalia. vehicle born id. originate in the middle east. we have seen mexico as drug cartels use them to target each other than. the female suicide bombers. we think originally originated with the tigers we have seen them of course across the middle east. southern europe, somalia, nigeria, russia, and as we see in afghanistan. i like to say that while we in the military u.s. military marched to the sound of the guns, these threat networks

march to the signs of instability and take the ied with them. we must address the networking. it is a critical enabler to attack the networks. now, let's also discuss the devices. and we see these networks migrate to whatever is cheapest, most readily available, exoantd. largely increasingly off the shelf. command wire, pressure plates, when they can, radio control triggers, off the shelf components. improvised caps that are harder to detect. if-- in the future when they will my grate is not a question to thin and flexible electronics used by blue tube as triggering twices. optical initiators and how can they mix highly energetic materials to create an explosive? and enhance concealment techniques as we have seen on-air craft. it is a threat in networks and

the devices here to stay. how do we approach it? i think in the future as we're exercising today to increasingly a whole of government approach. dod cannot do this alone. the phrase is it takes a networking to defeat a networking. that is absolutely true. we have parter inned and we have 17 federal agencies and services that work with us and have liaisons assigned to us. atf, department of homeland security, all of the intel agencies, fbi, state, commerce, et. cetera. plus our international partners the u.k., australia, canada all have officers working with us. and we also have a link with nato intelligence. so in order execute this process it starts with the intelligence. focused intelligence on the networks where operating with what are the vulnerable. and applying all of the tool that are interagency partners bring to the table. i refer to it as nonhe nettic

targeting. how can we use the tools of state, treasury, and commerce and let me give you some examples how we have done that and the results of the process. commerce is added 152 person to the entity list because of the ied matter. they stop the u.s. companies from trading or working with a foreign entity. treasury is imposed economic sanctions on 33 targets that affect the ied flow to afghanistan and there's a news report in reuters i saw today they disnated three additional individuals. as the september dhs global shield program enforced 40 enforce actions. -- in various places and also using diplomacy to engage governments that can have an effect on some of the entities. so there's are few of the examples being applied in the

government approach. we have also engaged the fertilizer industry and encourage the them to apply a whole industry approach. let me tell you once you describe the person to the fertilizer industry, they are, i believe, very committed to this. both the international fertilizer the association, the largest association of ammonium nitrate. they have created a product security board. we have asked the board to cofour things. implement a universal dye program. so they can be recognized by border police and authorities and they looked something easier to identify than they are today which is a milky white, could be disguised and repackaged as detergent or other materials. as an industry they need to take

it. substitute effective industry wide standards on the distribution and tracking of the product. family, produce a global education and awareness program on what to look for the misuse and misappropriation of the products. we understand it's a huge challenge given the ambiguity of the product the seller nature to the global agricultural, however we feel it must be addressed using every tool possible. so as we look to the future in closing, what do we think? i know if i could ask about the future of our organization, i'll talk about it. but in my view, and enduring threat requires enduring capabilities whenever we have come out of any other conflict, we have taken a hard look at what worked, what do we need to retain as far as capability, and what are the threats we need to prepare for for the future. i believe we need to retain the rapid accession and fielding capability. we cannot go back to the

accusation and fielding capabilities we had on september 10th. how do we do this? how do we share this with our allays? we must retain this operational intelligence and information fusion and analysis. we can provide our commanders in real time through reachback the intelligence they need to immediately have situational awareness and conduct operations against these networks. training, our training we must constitution -- employ them as a key threat and factor in the training. the whole government approach. that i discussed. there's a tremendous sense of urgency in our government because of the casualties and affects to our troopers and nato troopers in afghanistan. we must remain contain the capability. the networkings are going to endure. and then next to last, i think weapons technical intelligence. as i said, this removes the anonymity from the networks, everything from biomettic, dna, how do we retain the capability

and not break them apart. it is a powerful with commanders in afghanistan refer to as a game changer. how can we retain that as a skill. for the military, how can we continue to convert intelligence in evidence to enable our inner agency parter ins to imply the tool in this case have. final skill is financial intelligence what i call. the life blood of the networks is their funding. where is it? what solutions are coordinatedded? where is the an ex sis between commerce and activity and elicit activity and where the vulnerabilities in the funding? and how can we go after them? in -- in my view, we built the capability, everybody in the u.s. inner agency everyone does a little. no one does enough with it. how can we build the capability and retain it in to the future?

just in parting thoughts? just as the are tillty was the greater casual try producer. ied is i believe is the arkansas -- there is no silver bullet to stop the casualty reducing guys here at home or on the battle field. these networks and guys i believe aren't enduring global threat wherever we go operationally here in the future and here at home. and they must be met with a coherent and focused approach to the future as we deal with these. with that, thank you for the opportunity, i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, general. if i may, i had -- [inaudible] our colleagues with join in the conversation with you. my first question remits -- relates to the transition in afghanistan. you mentioned the training of

partners -- [inaudible] clearly the challenge which will remain as the ied once the united states and cot legislation depart. what extend is the capacity and do so you have enough time to convert that capacity in to fighting force that will be able do come to -- once the coalition seizes the operations? >> first of all, you know, we're not excess of two transitions. the first one is from elite and combat operations to advisory role. different to make with different capability. u.s. formations are deploying to answer that. there are obviously the largest challenge and transition to african security forces. first on the u.s. forces through 2014, we are focused on supporting this force. as we saw in iraq, when you're number of your troops reduces

and you are no longer in the lead and as active as you are, your situational awareness becomes less. how do you compensate for that? there's a number of capabilities isr, for example, additional counter id capability. terrorist a number of additional capabilities that can help compensate for that. as our boots on the ground a number of troop goes down, it doesn't mean that all of our capabilities will reduce proportion nately. some will stay the same, many will need to increase. the african security forces, because of my funding, i cannot directly fund their capabilities. but we're engaged, doctor carter, the deep -- to look how we support the building of the capabilities and accelerate them in some areas. as you talk to a brigade commanders as i did in july and

here next week when go, they tell you the partners operation, the afghan forces are very effective. and they don't need the same capabilities we do. they need cape abilities they can sustain and capabilities that are suited to their skills. so that is what the icaf looked at nap is in the process of building. the route clearance, counter ied and e, od cape abilities are being built appropriately and as i said, when they are out front or partnered with us, they are very effective in the effort. >> my e next question is about the real realic -- i know it has been the source of some debate and discussion particularly with the pakistani part anywhere -- partner on how best to divert the flow of fertilizer that is used to create the weapon.

pakistan is not the sole source of the fertilizer, i understand, to what extent is that discussion yielding fruit? >> well, i mean, you use the right term. they are our partners in this. and as i said in my remarks, pakistan has suffered greatly. their security forces, the civilian substituted to the network and the devices. as i said outside of afghanistan, they have the number one in monthly incidents. we have had discussions, and we had several exchanges, we've had two groups of pakistani military visit here to the headquarter and some of our training facilities. and i've been there twice to meet with the pakistani partners to talk about this. every leader from secretary clinton certainly general allen, and the ambassador in pakistan have made it a topic of discussion. ..

>> we must improve interdiction. i've given the figures of what we interdicted in afghanistan, and there must be a partnership

in that also. we have to cooperate to go after the money and these networks operating in pakistan. we are ready to cooperate with this and this effort. those are -- we are partners. this app area where we both agree where we need to cooperate. we need to move from discussing cooperation to active cooperation. >> thank you. i'd like to open it up. i think arlen had a question. when the microphone comes to you, identify yourself, please, and also, if you wish to ask a question, if you could perhaps signal me putting your name card on the side so i know who to go to next. >> good to see you. not as interesting as those in west minister. >> right. >> three questions related to the comments about the future. post-2014, out of afghanistan,

could you expand on the future of gido, but also in the context of us austerity. you can argue in terms of cost exchange ratio, opposed to what they spean, it ain't in our favor. second, you didn't touch on the issue of sea based ieds, may be more of a naval issue, but i'm not sure it is. thirdly, what about airborne ieds and drones when they get them. hezbollah's flown drones over israel. a character in virginia was arrested for trying to use one. bad guys will get them and fly them. what are your thoughts as to how you or somebody else is addressing them? >> uh-huh. the first one, the future of my organization, i tell people that's the wrong question. the right question is is the irk ed and are the networks that employee them here to stay? they are. if we have an enduring threat, do we require enduring capabilities? the answer is yes.

dr. carter has taken on the effort of looking at task forces created throughout the years in the department of defense to address a need or urgent requirement, and what endures, how do we shape that, and he's taken that op, and over the next few months, he is said we will work through this, but he's told us clearly our mission, our resourcing, our focus, or support through 20 # 14 remains unchanged, and that is our focus. more to follow on the future. my view is, and it is that there are certain problems and challenges that are best served with a joint response, and this is one of them. services do great work, when you talk about different program managers, the navy has a lead for count radio control ieds for

jamming. the air force brings other skills, the army, the marines. this calls for a joint response, a joint organization that is toppedded into not just the focus today, but all combat and commanders. we receive support from all combat and commanders for intelligence and analysis and also other capabilities. that's going to grow in the future. look at africa, the organizations i mentioned. it must be joined, tied in with a global perspective. sea based ieds, we're involved in the navy, and there's three specific initiatives that we're funding through the navy from censors to the ability to look at counterswimmer and some other capabilities so i think as we go to the future, we have to look to the wide range of what's possible and start developing countercapabilities for it whether it's sea born or as you

mentioned, harlen, in the air. now, you mentioned the cost exchange ratio, and their business model is crushing ours so as i talk to the industry partners, i said the days of us spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this are over. we have to be more effective and more efficient at whatever we develop. it has to be expeditionary and apply in other reasons other than afghanistan. when you can guy fertilizer for $100 and pro pain water and a -- propane water, a tarp to blast it out, blasting caps, that's six devastating ieds. we can't sustain that. we have to do two things. we have to figure out how to build effectively african-american efficiently and

drive down our cost, but drive theirs up. how do we go after the money, seize, block assets, making it costly in a wide range of ways for them to do business. that's what i see we must do here in the future. until 20 # 14, we're here, well resourced, and focused on the fight in afghanistan. >> thank you. >> wait for the microphone, please. >> i have questions on the statistics you gave us. jupe was the highest month? >> june 2012 was the highest number of ied events. an event is one that's detonated, one we find and clear, a cash of ieds, everything that includes an ied that we encounter in afghanistan, and the number of those was an all time high in june. >> in the space of time that's passed, what have you learned about why that was so?

were there more operators? more locations? was there a baseline that it changed? >> well, i think it goes back to we were very, you know, 2011 was the highest ever, and there was an article or someone said high numbers of ied events can be interpreted as failure. well, i don't look at it that way. we had a larger number of troops taking the fight into areas described as safe havens so you're going -- this is the weapon they employ so you'll have a higher number of events being active and doing operations, and in the last few months, there's been operations that set conditions for the transitions to the afghans. they have been active in certain areas. hard to explain, but it's back to the supply problem. when we sweep historic amounts of fertilizer and other materials off the battlefield

and ieds remain high, we have to do something different other than playing defense in afghanistan. >> secondly, on the number of explosives seized, the amoan yum nigh tritt -- nitrate, were there areas where you found more of that and where was it coming from? >> the fertilizer in its bag largely, and also after it's been processed into aknown yum nigh -- nitrate, the explosive form of it. we've seen a slight increase, and we see it associated with haqqani network in rc east. nitrate is everywhere, and so it is -- those are the prime components of the explosive

charges. >> [inaudible] >> most has come in from pakistan, yes. >> question here. >> sea power magazine. i'd like to go further into the seaborne, new for your organization. can you go a little more into depth into what the programs are? >> sure. >> are you involved in the research or funding? how's it going? >> we are involved. it's knavely led, and we need to be more involved moving to the future, but i can give specifics on the three initiatives. one is a sensor for remotely operated vehicle to detect waterborneieds. you know, as i said, it's a remotely operated vehicle with sensors, command and control software with a manipulator to investgate these. the second one is a mobile

cueing mapping underwater mapping sonar, and for an infantryman, i'm out of my comfort zone here. [laughter] the third is a swimming threat identification. there's a number of other initiatives that deal with other waterborne threats, swarm, and other things like that which i probably shouldn't talk about, but i see this as an area where we need to be more engaged and involved with the navy. >> [inaudible] >> i don't have the figures on the money, but we can get that back to you. >> thank you. >> when you met the pakistani minister earlier last month, was there any specific that pakistan asked for in terms of ieds and as you mentioned the u.s. is willing to cooperate on this, what specific equipment training

can the u.s. provide pakistan in helping with the national ied strategy? >> sure. minister of interior was here for a conversation, working with counterterrorism and other threats, just two weeks ago, and there was a press release by the state department and others. it was a wide ranging discussion on what to do to cooperate in this area. as i met with the pakistani military, we have agreed to develop a frame work of cooperation, where can we cooperate? i believe we can contribute with training. we can contribute with some equipment. i know there's been some equipment transferred and general discussions of here are some requirements and some areas where they could request forensics and hand held devices and the like to better detect

instruments. we look forward to helping and the next step in these discussions. >> thank you. >> roger kirk, are the present security regulations at airport that dhs put in, are they adequate to detect or are there different ways to make ieds? >> i won't comment -- i can't comment really on the add -- adequatecy of them, but for every new communication system we have, there's someone in the world looking how to use that whether it's how to yows

broadband effectively, how to develop nonmetallic and nondetectble o poems to use in aircraft in times square and other places. they are actively working to bring this threat to the homeland, and we've seen it. times square and other examples, underwear bombers on airplanes, and continuous product improvement with every step along the way. it is of concern and something we are dealing with and will have to deal with for the future. >> i was wondering if you can comment on the speed of which the actors evolve the technology in response to the counter id efforts? >> well, in afghanistan, you know, we used to be engaged in

an arms race that took years to produce new radar and icbm, and now we're in an arms race that's weeks and months, and not years. they adapt in several ways. they can tell -- they watch and see if we're successful in detecting and seizing certain things. they change the way they process it. they watch us tacticically. where we dismount in our vehicles, then that's where you see the ieds. they know for a fact if they engage us with small arms and inflict casualties we bring in helicopters where there's a likely landing zone. when we make contact with the dismounted troops, first thing we look is to put the machine guns. that's where the ieds are. as we adjust, it's reaction, counter reaction. it's a rhythm of combat. we have to always stay al --

agile. it's a continued lessons learned and learning process that we try to bring back to the training base so the first time a trooper sees a piece of equipment or learns how to use it is not in afghanistan, but at the home station and at a training event and then in afghanistan. they are watching our tactics and adjusting. they are also, as i said, the materials, how they employ them, how they construct devices is constantly evolving, both in afghanistan and globally. what works, it is seamless how they share them. go on the internet now and learn how to process nitrate, discussions of explosively formed projectiles have my -- my grated. they are a learning, adaptive

enemy. >> thank you, steve? >> thank you, i'm the lund fellow here at the council. how is industry performing for your mission? i guess in particular, i'm interested to know how they are performing with respect to the speed, the responsiveness, the expeditionary nature of the mission, and if you can go so far as to say lessons learned for the industry as to how to be effective in a mission like this. that would interest me. >> right. well, early on, it was apparent to me from feedback we were too opaque with the requirements to industry so what we did is develop an up classified here's the gaps in our capabilities, and it's on our website, we share with industries saying you bring us this, we're the venture capitalists here to invest in it, get it to a point where it's good enough, and get it fielded.

they have been very responsive and i've not yet to find an industry partner who says, no, i'm not interested in helping out with the number one killer of our troops. they are all motivated, and, you know, some things we're not going to get out there fast. there's a new sensor created over time, you can throw as much money at it as you want, and it's not going to be rapidly fielded, but a lot of them, they have been very responsive, and very attune to the requirement to rapidly come up with something that's good enough, and i'll give you an example. last year in talking to a group of marines and down at camp bash tan preparing to redeploy, what do you need? i said, i've heard you need a robot, something big to prenet nate these things.

he said, we don't want to haul that thing. we want something light, throw a hundred meters, day/night camera, less than five pounds. if it's blown up, there's another one in the backpack. we came back, issued a broad area announcement, which is what we use to go out to industry here's a need, what have you got? got 40 proposals, and we narrowedded it down to six, and by the time we did that, we got the official request from theater, and then we fielded three, a hundred of each type, and now it's out there being operationally tested. we did some testing in the states where we thought it was good enough, and got it there, operationally use these with the dismounts and route clearance, tell us what you want or how to improve them. i think they'll come back and say we want all three types of this in certain numbers, and we set conditions with the three producers that are ready to

write the check and get them there as far as fast as we can. to answer your question, very responsive and engaged to us. >> is there a time scale with the ied squad? >> this is not ideal, but it was about, you know, it was shrinking robotics, and it was a challenge in getting a day/night camera. it was about eight to ten months before we got them over there. that's not what we strive for. another example we did is looking last year at the injuries our dismounted troops were taken, we called the british partners, what do you have? they came by, laid out hand held devices, invested in one of them, and doubled down on that, but they brought protective undergarments. what is it? sent a couple across, and within four months, we fielded 210,000 kits, and they have been

effective in limiting the damage, the injuries to our troopers when they do get hit by the ieds in the dismounted mode. we are now looking how to improve them, making them lighter, more comfortable, but that was done in four months. that's the target. how can we do it faster? get it there before the fighting season. if it's months, that's great, but june and july, you missed the fighting season. what can we do to accelerate capabilities before the next fighting season because it's cyclic. >> i recently attended a class briefing at your organization put on, and i was really impressed with the way you put out this, you know, put out the contact bids for people to come back with the different types of equipment, the size, the

range, ect., and also the way you do the acquisition has to be praised because its reaction that needs to be done, and if there was -- anyonemented to know more about -- anyone wanted to know more about it, it's unclassified. it was a great briefing. >> thanks. >> until they got into the nanomanner. i just wanted to sing your praise. >> thanks. >> about what you're doing. >> thanks. it goes back to what i said about unique authorities. i can sign off on less than $25 million, i can sign off on it, we get on with it. when we realized last year the first time our troopers saw hand held devices when they got in afghanistan, that was the right thing to do, get it in theater as fast as we can. they said, sir, a lot to absorb

first week in the country. for $24 million some, we bought 70 sets, home stations, train at the camps, and put them in training centers so hopefully they see them twice before they occupy the battle space. anything above $25 million, we have a rapid staffing through the services, through dr. carter, and 10-18 days, and if it's not done by that time, we start making phone calls. >> [inaudible] >> right. there are. industry, the national labs, this is really about building a partnership and who else we can partner with and use their unique skills in this fight, but that's an area where i said we must retain. we can't go back to focusing on programs of record, five year plans because on the other part of the world, there's a guy sitting there not constrained like that.

he's as agile as he can be. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> two questions if i may. just if you care -- what would be the single biggest contributor to the delay getting whatever it is to the field? geography, industry, funding? just trying to figure it out? >> it's not funding. it's not bureaucracy. some of the sensors we field to detect a very small component from some cases, 10,000-40,000 feet is just plain hard physics, and the sensors either don't exi, and that takes time to develop tests and get them to a good enough point or there's just a one of that takes a very long time to develop. there's one -- i won't tell you what it does, but it was useful in iraq. we shifted them too afghanistan,

and they are the best detection platform for the this one type of ied, and we got a request for two more. the first response was it takes x number of months. come on in and get it to the less. cost us more? how much? it's not the bureaucracy or funding. i got great funding authorities and a very responsive staffing within the department of defense for anything about $25 million, and every time we staffed one of those initiatives, it's never been denied or held up so it's just some of these are very hart to put together. >> first, it's about funding. i mean, you got -- [inaudible] all factors coming together. kind of how -- for carter, how

do you adapt to make somebody on the hill or elsewhere say, okay, we need -- [inaudible] >> we have great support on the hill. we're engaged there, in direct appropriations, up there all the time. i met with a -- i briefed staffers monday. up there a couple times a week for the exchange, and anything over $2 million, we brief the hill. again, we've never been told no or held up. that's important to be transparent with them and everyone else. you know, our budget last year was $2.4 billion. this year for next year we asked $1.9 billion, and we took a very serious dill gent look at budgets. the easy thing would have been $2.4 billion. that was not the case. we have different requirements this year, but there's certain things unknown.

what's next? there's certain thing we know that, ied is the weapon of choice, numbers are high, there's another fighting season, two transitions to get through. the transition to an advisory role and nasf. when's the next cut in the number of troops on the ground. that's not been determined yet. there's what we don't know, how will the nsf develop capabilities and enemy gets a vote. we think the budget request for next year is appropriate, and anything below that, i'd say we accept significant risk to my mission. >> thank you. >> hi, i'm from woodrow wilson center. >> would you mind speaking up, the audience at home needs to hear. >> i'm the pakistan scholar. three short questions. first one, you spoke a little about the fertilizer industry,

basically you know, from where most of the fertilizer produced ends up in ieds, and you mentioned the dye, the issue of that, shed light about that, why there has been little progress on that, and the other is there's basically with the rc east, and there was a question about where the incidents arrisen. when you talk about the high numbers in june 2012 all over, can you give us a regional profile in the highest number of ieds all around? rc east compared to rc south and central afghanistan? >> right. >> the third question you also talked about in a knowledge transfer, very quick now, the important impression that ieds in the planned theater were followed by a spike of ieds in iraq, and that's where that knowledge transferred.

do you agree with that? was that, you know, basically a battle development on -- in afghanistan theater? >> the last part of the question is there a large transfer of knowledge from iraq into afghanistan? >> because first time really when ieds started in a big way in afghanistan. there was a question at that time how come we have not seen an increase in ied knowledge and technology and use in afghanistan and people said that it was basically because of iraq. >> uh-huh. >> just -- >> well, first of all, as far as where we see the number of ieds, last year, it was rc southwest where the marines were moving. that was the highest number of ieds and casualty. now it's rc south. rc east remained consistently high. rc south and east is where we see the majority of the ieds. as far as transfer of tactics,

techniques, and procedures from iraq to afghanistan, someone asked me if afghanistan is the testing ground for the rest of the world in ieds. i say, no, the rest of the world is the testing ground because we're seeing developments in different areas. i mentioned the explosively performed projectile, a signature weapon in iraq is now in somalia. there's been one incident in afghanistan. there's improvised blasting caps and other improvised devices that migrate, and so i can't draw a line from what we saw and experienced in iraq as far as tactics, techniques, and procedures. iraq was largely ammunitions at the outset because that's what was available, cheap education, available, and then the projectile was the weapon. in afghanistan, it's home made explosives. it's been that way.

it's improvised, pressure plates. in iraq, radio control and than command wire. i can't draw a thread between iraq and afghanistan as far as one led to what we see on the ground in the other place. the materials are too am bigtous, too cheap, and they use what's available in the location where they are and what works best. that's going to change. >> the first question was about fertilizer and lack of progress. >> i can't answer that. it's a common threat, and we must, you know, the fertilizer industry's taken this on. they are moving out to take a look at this and i believe take some actions to institute some of these four, you know, four changes they've adopted. as far as progress, there's been some activity in pakistan.

i know they changed the bags and put numbers on the bags of the fertilizer, but you know, 130 tons, 100% increase in afghanistan, we have not seen the effects yet. >> thank you, sir. marine corp. fellow here at the council. you mentioned the network attacking the network, and i understand the network is equipment, it's people, it's information, but you also sort of eluded that might be the center of gravity, the death blow, and to me, you commented on the fact that information sharing on tactics, techniques, and procedures is fairly easy so in order to attack a center of gravity, it has to be a definable thing. can you comment on the ability to attack the use of the internet, hesitate to use the word "cyber" because it's sort

of a frequently used, but misunderstood phrase, but, to me, there's a lot of hungry people out there on the offensive of the cyber piece, and, to me, this is a very logically admiral approach to thwart it to get inside something that's happening. >> uh-huh. it's a huge challenge. i'm not engaged in that. we do little in that area. there's plenty who are. i'm not the right person to talk to. we need to take it on. that's their c4sr, command and control and isr, is as i said, flat, virtual, and unencumbered. how do we neutralize that advantage? it's a strategic advantage as i said. that's what i see. we have to take it on in the future. i can't answer what's being done in the area though. >> if i could go back to my

first comment which is the issue in the end is not just technology. you do your best in trying to deal with what are the symptoms of an underlying disorder within society that we're operating in. there's really a missing an nexs in my view in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. once the challenge is over, the challenge is then for the local governments, particularly in the region we've focused on today in afghanistan, and to change the underlying conditions that breed the need for this a-symmetric war, but in afghanistan, maybe once the coalition departs, there's not a reason for the fighting. i'm not sure the evidence is in on that, and i'm just wondering

whether there has been any debate or discussion within the country's concern? you may not be privy to that so feel free not to answer that, but i just want to throw that out, maybe others in the group want to add their views. >> i'm not sure what the discussions are. attacking the network is the most difficult, most complex challenge you have, understanding them and looking into detecting as a -- vulnerabilities is critical, but difficult. i don't know what the discussions are in other places. >> and a second question. general, you didn't mention dogs. apparently we use dogs for fertilizer based weapons,

something to detect those. talk about what we do -- >> right. with the dogs, and also, are there other sensors you work on or feeling -- there's so little metal involved in most of the ieds these days. >> sure. dogs are critical, especially in the dismounted fight. we have commanders that swear by them that say i will not let a dismounted element go out without a dog. the challenge here is to imprint the dogs on what nitrate and other components, what to look for a detect, and they are very effective. interestingly, the key variable is the handler and selection of the handler. picking the dog handler, you're not successful. if it's the last guy late to formation some day and as punishment you turn him into a dog handler, you're not successful. selection of handler, and we are # actively involved in keeping

the dogs current, and there are a wide sweep of sensors, airborne and ground mounted that can detect these explosives, especially nitrate fielded and used that are yielding effective. >> thank you. we have another question. >> i'm almost embarrassed to ask this question, but is there a nato center of excellence for ieds given the fact the secretary general called for smart defense? how are you interfacing there? how have you made progress with act, obviously, an ied capacity too? >> when i left iraq, my nato boss said, hey, as you take a new role, work with nato. we worked with transformation down in norfolk. they own the responsibility for

counter id policy. they wrote and published a national strategy fielded in both strategic commanders ready to adopt, and we worked with them on that, and it's a very, very good strategy. there's a center of excellence in madrid, and weaver worked partnering with them, helping with curriculum development and some of the communications and some instruction and training. i was recently in brussels, met with the commander to better partner with nato soft as they go about their message. finally, the nato intelligence facility. we established a presence there for direct linkage in exchange for intelligence. we cannot, as we come out of the 11-year effort let budget pressures or war fatigue let us

walk away or from the enduring threat. it's important, and then the last part is smart defense. there's three smart defenses as nato plans to look at the capabilities, and how they look to develop them in the future. there's three counter id capabilities. we proposed a fourth one, attack the network, moving through the system. confident that will be adopted, and we're the u.s. lead for those three that the u.s. has. i feel good about where nato's going, and we're tightly tied into them. >> general, if we have you back here two years from now, what would you like to be able to say at that time about where things are, particularly at the end of the transition? >> right. well, two things. first, that we were effective in limiting the casualties in afghanistan. that's our focus.

i mean, these -- when i talk about progress here earlier, to some kid in bethese da and a family in kansas, that's not progress. we have to do better. i'd like to be able to tell you we limited casualties greater. second thing i want to tell you is looking beyond 2014 we institutionalized the right capabilities and right way to meet the enduring threat. we're going to work hard as hell on the first one every day, and i'm pretty confident that we'll be able to report out success in the second one. >> thank you very much, general. we really appreciate you taking this time. since we don't have any other questions, that leads me to thank you, again, on behalf of my colleagues. >> thank you for the opportunity and thank you for the interest. thank you very much. [applause]

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c-span bringing you live house, senate, and governor's debates between the country between now and november 6. tonight, campaign coverage goes to indiana for a governor's debate between mike pence, state house majority leader, john greg, and ruper t-boneham. that's live here on c-span2. >> starts an an economic argument. men having a difficult time adapting to the economy, women more easily. i don't know why. there's different periods in history where men adapted to

this change. just to say to this period in history. it's education and credential. the economy is fast changing. women seem to be getting skills and country den reels at a much faster rate than men, and they are nimble. that filters down in society. in the book, i talk about how that changes marriage and our notion of fatherhood and what men can and can't do and families and, you know, how young people have sex and make decisions and so you really start to see that have an influence in the culture. >> tucker carlson joins anna rosen to discuss "the end of men" on "after words" this weekend on c-span2's booktv.

>> there's a movie theater i write about, i went to visit it, there since 1947, the founding year of the country. it showed films from all over the world from the united states, from england, from balwood and india, and, to me, it symbolized the resilience of the country and the openness of the country in spite of the violence and trouble people suffered over the last many decades, and during one of the protests that insulted the prophet, a negative image, in a

protest, people turned against the movie theaters and burnedded them. i don't really see that as a protest against the west. i don't see that as a protest against the united states even though avatar was a movie you could have gone to see at this theater. you had islamists activists who had not liked these movie theaters for decades, way before this prophet film which was never shown in them anyway, and so they grabbed the opportunity to attack, whipped up young people, teenagers involved who stole from the snack bar on the way to burn this movie theater, just to torch it, and i argue in that piece that what they were really attacking was the nature of their own country which perhaps they did not understand. i try to say that with the greatest respect. who am i as a foreigner to say what you country is about, but i know from having studied

history, from having listened to pakistanis themselves that it's an incredibly diverse place, born more diverse than it is today. a lot of cultures, a lot of different traditions, lots of different ways to be. that movie theater symbolized pakistan, and that is what people burned when they set it on fire. >> more with "instnt city" author sunday at 8 on c-span's "q and--- "q-and-a.

>> this 40 minute program is curtesy of apac, australia's public apair channel. ♪ >> hello, welcome to question time. it was another extraordinary week with the speaker of the house under increasing pressure to resign the post. he already stepped aside while a sexual harassment court case brought by a former staffer went on. in the cows of the case, text messages between the pair emerge showing crude language and a bad attitude towards women and sensing a political victory, the opposition moved to dump him. thing is, it was the government that put him in the chair. this is how question time started during the week. >> opposition has the call. >> thank you, deputy speaker.

as provided by section 35 of the constitution, the speaker be removed from office immediately. at the risk of detaining the house in a repettive way, let me say, madam deputy speaker, that it is absolutely crystal clear that this speaker is no longer a fit and proper person to uphold the dignity of this parliament and is no longer a fit and proper person to uphold and protect the standing orders of this house. i say, madam deputy speaker, that the speaker is not disqualified by the mere fact of illegal action against him. that can be any member of the house and of itself should not be a disqualification from high office. what much nevertheless be held against this speaker are the undenied, uncontradicted facts that emerged which continue to

emerge in the cause of the case currently on foot against the speaker of this parliament. at the risk, madam deputy speaker, of dismay of this chamber. at the risk, madam deputy speaker, dismay of the public. i must elude to the gross references to female genitalia contained in the undenied evidence of the cord about the conduct of this speaker. i must elude to the vile and references to which this speaker appears to be addicted in his text message, and madam deputy speaker, there is the clear bias, a clear bias in undenied, uncontradicted evidence before a court against a member of this house by someone who is charged to act without fear or favor,

but someone who is charged to act impartially by all members of the house, by someone charged with the upholding of the standing orders of the house without fear or favor against or in favor of any single member. be, you, the newest member, be you the father of the house, the speaker is charged with upholding the orders impartially for and against all members of the parliament, and on the face of the uncontra digitted, undenied evidence before a court, this speaker cannot do that. this speaker has not done that. that is why, madam deputy speaker, this particular speaker is no longer a fit and proper person to be the speaker of this house. madam deputy speaker, it's not just the speaker who has failed to carries case. it is, indeed, this prime

minister that failed the judgment. this prime minister hand picked the current speaker for the top job of the parliament. this prime minister orchestrated the resignation of the former speaker, the member of scotland, a man of undoubted character, a man of undoubted quality, and a man of undoubted impartiality in the conduct of this chamber. if anyone thinks for a second that the member, a man who loves this parliament, who loves the speakership as he loves his life, does anyone think the former speaker of the parliament would have resigned to spend more time with colleagues in the caucus? [laughter] i mean, ask the member of the banks what it is like these days. does anyone think the member really resigned to spend time with members of the caucus?

clearly, the members resign the speakership because he had been instructed by the prime minister, a prime minister who engaged and who master minded a smaller deal to shore up her numbers in the parliament and mark my words, madam deputy speaker, mark my words, madam deputy speaker, what we will shortly see from this prime minister and ministers in this government is a defense of the indefensible, is an attempt to say that someone who has clearly failed the character test is worthy of fitting in the greatest chair of this parliament. well, i say to this prime minister, just as the speaker has failed to character test, you, prime minister, are about to fail the judgment test, and every day that you, prime minister, run a protection

racket for the current speaker just like you ran for years, you indicate your unfitness for high office as well. madam deputy speaker, last november, when the prime minister feared he was about to lose the support of the member for dennisson because she knew she would not be able to deliver on her poker machine pledge, she cooked up this deal. she knew she was about to lose the support of the members. she feared she was going to lose support in the parliament of the members. she was apprehensive then as always about the action of the former prime minister so in conjunction with the leader of the house, she dreamt up this brilliant, political plea. she dreamt up this brilliant political tactic, nevermind if it involves the political

assassination of a well-respected speaker of this parliament, she knew that she could rely then, as always, on the death squads that dispatched one prime minister to deal with the speaker of the parliament. never mind -- nevermind that the deal that the prime minister cooked up in november involvedded placing in the chair of the parliament someone whom her own government, someone whom her own government was investigating for misuse of end entitlement. all that mattered to this prime minister, all that mattered to this prime minister last november when the brilliant piece of maneuvering was dreamt up was after seeing her position in the parliament. that's all that ever matters to this prime minister, her own survival in this parliament, and

madam deputy speaker, what is now absolutely apparent is that while members on this side of the house were attempting to maneuver the speaker out of the parliament, the prime minister and members on the other side of the parliament were giving him the biggest job in this parliament apart from the prime ministership itself, and in the process of managing the speaker, not out of the parliament, but into the speakership, this prime minister doubted a good labour man who had done nothing, nothing at tule but discharge the duties of the speakership in a fair and impartial manner, not sufficiently partial to satisfy the prime minister and the leader of this house. madam deputy speaker, let's be absolutely crystal clear about the situation in this parliament right now. this, speaker, is this prime

minister's creation. this speaker's action, this prime minister's responsibility, and this speaker put forth are these prime minister's standards unless she has the responsibility and decency to remove this speaker from his office. madam deputy speaker, we know -- we know because we've been observing this prime minister now for a long time in this parliament, we know that sorry is the one word she can't say. we know i was wrong is the one statement that she can't make. well, i say to this prime minister, please, for the sake of this parliament, for the sake of this country, for the sake of ordinary standards of decency admit you got it wrong when you engineered the members for

fisher into the speaker's chair and just say "sorry. " just apologize to this parliament for the travesty you've inflicted on us back in november last year. madam deputy speaker, as things stand, this whole sorry flipper saga shows the ethical bankruptcy of the government. we've had minister after minister just about knocking over the microphone to stand up for this speaker. that minister asked the minister tripping over themselves to defend this speaker. we had a minister for foreign affairs describing the accuser of the speaker as more rehearsed actor. we had the leader of the house saying that anyone who criticized the current speaker was guilty of engaging in the

politics of personal destruction. we even had the leader of the house compare court action against the current speaker to watergate. i mean, what sense is standards? what sense are proportions? what sense of perspective do these people have? worst of all, madam deputy speaker, worst of all, madam deputy speaker, we had the one person in this house, most charged with respecting due process, respecting the ordinary processes of the court, the first officer of the crowd, the first officer of this country, the attorney general, herself, who went out in public again and again and again and again to say that those engaged in a prosecuting this speaker was somehow guilty of an abusive process. she didn't say it once. it was not a slip of the tongue

in the heat of the moment. she went out and deliberately said it again and again and again and again, and when the attorney general was picked up for comem -- commentary, and it's interesting that the prime minister, herself, is saying, oh, i couldn't possibly comment on something before the court. oh, no, not me, not me. uphold the standard, upholder of decency, always wanting to give someone a fair go, oh, yeah, oh yeah. ..

was seeking to assert he's right. he's right. and speaker of the parliament. what happened? what happened miami deputy speaker? i have seen more being revealed about the real character, the real nature of the individual who hold the highest job at this poral -- parliament can bestow upon anyone. what happened? is it the attorney general has now taken the vow -- [inaudible] the joarn attorney has now taken the vow of silence on the matter that the prime minister is going to attempt take. well, maim deputy speaker, total

hypocrisy. this is a government which is only too ready to detect sexism, to detect by one of the supporters. until madam deputy speaker they find it upon someone whom this prime minister survivors in her job. then, of course, no the court can found in evil dare be spoken. madam deputy speaker, the australian public know what is going on here. they know that this government is about to run a protection racket for something which is something this is contemptible for attitudes and values that are outly indefensible. not only has the prime minister filed the judgment here, not

only has the government filed the standard case, but this attorney general has filed the honor case. she has dishonor filed to defend the ordinary judicial protest of this country not only has the attorney general filed to defend judicial process. she has been the chief defender speaker of himself. he's been running his defense rather than defending the courts and justice of protest of our country. madam deputy speaker, it is -- [inaudible] it is now -- [inaudible] that the members of banks has today resigned as government of the government caucus. it's no accident that the member has signed today because it must be only too well aware of the

fact that back in november last year, it was indeed the member the who was forced who was forced to nominate the current speaker for the position that he now hold. it was the member for banks who was forced by the government to endure ten minutes of infa my while he -- in his place. he stood in his place to assert the virtue of the member. well, it was wrong then, he knew -- it was wrong every day since then. it's obviously been hanging on the conscious and now he has resigned. i'm waiting for the member from melbourne ports who was asserted the member of the -- and assertion that he knew then and has not every day since then to be simply false.

so far the only honorable men in this matter has been the member debate and i commend him. i commend him for that. it now i know -- i know madam deputy speaker that the prime minister is in a difficult position today. she's already lost a caucus chairman, she's fight to be avoid losing her speaker, and ultimately what she is fright end of losing is the support of her caucus too. just as she lost the caucus chairman she will lose her speaker, and i suspect she will shortly lose the caucus. because what this prime minister has done is shame this parliament. and should she rise in this place now, to try to defend the speaker, to try to say she retains confidence in the speaker, she will shame this

parliament again and everyday the prime minister stands in this parliament to defend this speaker will be another day of shame for this parliament, another day of shame for the government which should already have done of shame. nebraska -- never have a speaker in the parliament. he shouldn't have been made speaker last november and he shouldn't be speaker now. let me simply remind the prime minister who i people is presume who is about to rise in many parliament and defend her personal selection of the member for fisher as speaker of this place. she said back on the 24th of november last year, she said of this speaker that he had shown a fierce sense of balance and appropriateness.

and appropriateness. this prime minister thinks that this speaker is a man of a appropriate judgment. ma'am deputy speaker, what this prime minister now needs to do is to defend the conduct, the character, and the words of this speaker. i hear an accusation. how long was he tsh we were trying to get him out of the -- [inaudible conversations] what did he do? they put him -- they put him in -- [inaudible conversations] in the parliament. this speaker -- [inaudible] >> order! >> this is the -- prime minister -- this speaker and every day the prime minister stands in this parliament to defend this speaker the bonds between them will just be closer.

this prime minister should be ashamed of himself. she should be asham of her choice and judgment. she should be asamed of the fact that the is now having to defend the indefensible. this speaker should be gone today. those words died of shame had a special mean forking the prime minister because just days earlier, the popular broadcast here in australia used the same phrase to describe julia gill lard's father claiming he had died of shame because of his daughter's lies. that caused a huge controversy here in australia. and while trying to protect peter and keep him in the speaker jail she used the opportunity to troy to turn it back on the opposition attorney abbott. labor had been increasing the attorney abbott in regards to his attitude toward women. julia delivered a speech widely

regarded as the best policy. >> i call the prime minister. >> thank you very much. deputy speaker i rise to oppose the movement made by the leader of the opposition. in so doing i -- i will not be lectured about sexism by the men. ly not. [inaudible] >> order! >> by these men. not now, not ever. the leader of the opposition said that hold sexist jew and are missing nist are not appropriate. i hope the leader of the opposition -- has got a piece of paper and writing out the resignation. if he wants to know what ma soggy any looks like in australia. he doesn't need a motion in the house of representatives. he needs a mirror. that's what he needs. let's go through the opposition

leaders from -- [inaudible] double standards, from -- [inaudible] when it comes to missoggy knee and sexism. we are supposed to take seriously -- [inaudible] not when he was a student, not when he was in high school. when he was a minister under the last government. he has said and i quote, in a discussion about women being under represented in institutions of power in australia, the interview was a man called -- [inaudible] the leader of the opposition said, if it's true, that men have more power generally speaking than women, is that a bad thing? [laughter] and then a discussion infused and another person being interviewed said i want my daughter to have as much

opportunity as my son. to which the leader of the opposition says, yeah, i can completely agree. but what if men are by physiology or temperament more adapted to each side's authority or to issue command? [inaudible] another discussion about women's role in modern society and the -- participating in the discussion says, i think it's very hard to deny there is an underrepresentation of women. to which the leader of the opposition say, but now this assumption that this is a bad thing, this is the man with whom -- sexism and then of course, it goes on. i was very offended personally when the leader of the opposition administered the health state, i quote, abortion is the -- [inaudible] personally offended by the

comments. he said that in march of 2004, i suggest you check the records. i was on the other handed on behalf of the women of australia win the courts over this carbon pricing campaign, the leader of the opposition said when the house -- of australia need to do what the housewives of australia need to understand as they do the -- thank you for that painting of women in stray ya. and then i was on the other handed too on the other offended by the -- cat calls across the table at me as i sit here as prime minister if the prime minister wants to political my speaking make an honest women of herself. something that would never have been said to any man sitting in this chair. i was offended. when the leader of the opposition went outside in the parliament and stood next to a

sign that said -- [inaudible] i was on the other handed when the leader of the opposition . >> order! as i made a speech. i was offended by those things. sex ifmg every day from the labor of the opposition. every day in every way across the time the leader of the opposition has sat in that chair and i sat if this chair. that is all we have heard from him. and now the leader of the opposition wants to be taken seriously. apparently he's -- after the track record nor the statements [inaudible] smart political pervert doesn't turn a head about any many of the pass statement. doesn't apology to the women of australia and apologize to me for the things that have come out of his mouth.

but now thanks to you, this is a battering ram against something else. at least -- hypocrisy should not be tolerated which is why this motion from the leader of the opposition should not be taken seriously. and -- the leader of the opposition is always wonderful about walking in to the parliaments and giving me and others a lecture about what they should take responsibility for. always wonderful about that. everything i should take responsibility for now apparently including the text messages of the associates. always -- [inaudible] responsibility particularly me. can anybody remind me the leader of the opposition has taken any responsibility for the conduct of the sydney young liberals and the -- [inaudible] of members of his speech. has he taken any responsibility for the conduct members of his

political party and members of his -- who apparently when the most vile things were being said about my family raised no voice of objection. not when i walked out of the room -- [inaudible conversations] instead of course it was viewed as good until it was run in a sunday newspaper and the leader of the opposition and others started ducking for cover. being on lectures of responsibility, there a laws on accepting responsibility himself for the vile conduct that members of his political party. third, the speaker the leader of the opposition should not be taken seriously on this motion. the leader of the opposition and the deputy leader of the opposition have come in to the praise and talked about the -- [inaudible] let me remind the opposition and the leader of the opposition

particularly about their track record and association with the member. a reminder that the national party elected the members of the 1984 election. the national party preselectedded the member -- that's a liberal party [inaudible] for the 1993 election. then for the '96 election. and the '98 election. and the 2001 election. then for the 2004 election, then for the 2007 election, and then for the 2010 election and of course many of those elections meets -- personal support of the leader of the opposition. i remind the leader of the opposition that on the 28th of september 2010, following the last election campaign, when mr. slipper was elect as deputy speaker. >> this is an open court.

>> the leader of the opposition said this, and i quote, he referred to the members of -- who was also elected to a position that at the same time and then went on as follows. and the member will serve as a fine complimentary to the members of -- i believe that the parliament will be well serve bid the team which will occupy the chair in this chamber. i congratulate the members who have ban friend of mine for a very long time who is served in parliament in many capacities with distinction. the words of the leader of the opposition on record about personal friendship with mr. slipper and arguing about his view about mr. slipper's qualities and attributes to be the speaker. no walking away from those words. they were the statement of the leader of the opposition then. i remind the leader of the opposition who comes in here and speaks about mr. slipper and

apparently his inability to work with or talk to mr. slipper a remind the leader of the opposition he was attended mr. slipper's wedding and walked up and say he was disgusted to be there? that was he the attitude he took in? 0 he attended that wedding as a friend. the leader of the opposition came to lecture others about what they ought know or did know about mr. slipper, with respect i say to the leader of the opposition, after i personal associates including attending mr. slipper's wedding. it would be interesting to know whether the leader of the opposition was surprised by the text messages. he's certainly in a position to speak more intimately about mr. slipper an i am and many other people in the parliament. even the long personal association. then, of course, then of course, the leader of the opposition comes in to the place and say

ands i quote, and sayings, and i quote, every day the prime minister stands in this parliament to defend this speaker will be another day of shame for the parliament. another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame. >> where is that? >> can i -- the leader of the opposition the government is not dying of shame. my family did not die of shame. what's the leader of the opposition should be ashamed of is the performance anyone the parliament and the sexism he brings with it. now about the text mess messages on the public record over -- recorded in the -- that's a direct quote from the leader of the opposition have a word with him. now on the conduct of mr. slipper, and on the text messages that are in the public domain are him saying the press reports of those text message.

i'm offended by the content. i'm offenderred by the con at the present time, i'm offended by sexism. i'm offended because i'm offended by statements that are antiwomen. i'm offended by the things in the same way that i have been offended by things that the leader of the opposition has said and no doubtly don't say in the future because today was an exhibition of new femme mom side. i don't think we have touch look forward to in terms of change conduct. i am offended by those text messages. i also believe in terms of this parliament making a decision about the speakers here that this parliament should recognize there is a court case in progress that the judge has reserved his division that having waited for a number of months for the legal matters surrounding mr. slipper to come

to a conclusion that this parliament should see that conclusion. i believe that is the appropriate part forward and that people will then have an opportunity to makeup their mind with the fullest information available to them. but whenever people make up their minds about those questions, what i might stand is the leader of the opposition coming in to the place and peddling a double standard. pelgding a standard for mr. slipper he would not say for himself. pelgding a standard for mr. slipper he has not -- [inaudible] secretary senator -- [inaudible] ly not see the leader of the opposition seek to impose his

double standard on these parliament. sexism should always be unacceptable. we should conduct ourself as it should be always unacceptable. the leader of the opposition [inaudible] do something himself. if he wants to with sexism in this parliament. change his behavior, he could have apologized for the past statement, he could apologize for the standing next to signs describing me as a witch and bitch. terminology he objected to. he could change a standard himself if he disowght so. we will see none of that from the leader of the opposition on these questions he is incapable of change. the double standards incapable of change. he's double standards should not rule the parliament. common sense, proper processings what should rule the parliament. that's what i believe is the

path forward for this parliament, not the kind of double standards and political game playing impose bid the leader of the opposition. now looking a the the watch apparently a woman's spoken too long. i had him yell at me to shut up in the past. ly take the remaining, i will take the remaining seconds of my speaking time to say to the leader of the opposition i think the best course for him is to reflect on the standards exhibited in public loss. on the responsibility he should take for his public statements on his close personal connection with slipper on the hypocrisy he displayed today. and on that -- because of the leader opposition's motivation this parliament today should reject these motions and the leader of the opposition should think seriously about the role of women in public law and in australian society because we

are bited entitled to a better standard. the government won the vote to keep him in the chair after pressure from the cross bench, the whole deal came up stuck three hours later. peter slipper resigned and new speaker anna berg was elected to the chair. >> honorable members, ilgd like to take this opportunity of thanking the house this afternoon for the continued support for the great privilege of serving as 27-speaker of the house of representatives. i think particularly those honorable members for the most part who have spoken support of me. i appreciate the references to the froips i have enjoyed with members across the spectrum over many years. it is indeed a great privilege to serve in this place and particularly as speaker.

despite the vote of the house in support of my continuation in office, i wish to advise with great sadness i have dpdzed i -- decide i i should not continue as your speaker. accordingly, having arrangements made to tender my resignation the governor general the importance on the role of the house of representatives in australia is far more important than my future or my continuation as speaker. i would like to thank madam deputy speaker, the honorable member who has worked dill jebtly as deputy speaker in the recent difficult circumstance. she's been loyal, he's not

sought to have her own position advanced, she has done everything that a deputy speaker should do. in fact she's done more. i want to thank the member madam deputy speaker for her personal friendship and support over the last six months and no one would have expected madam deputy speaker you would have had thrush upon you the responsibilities that have been thrust upon you in your capacity. i think we should all publicly thank you for the role you play. it's a wonderful privilege to serve in the parliament and of course, the interest of the parliament a seriously more important than the interest of any others. and i respect this parliament too much not put aside my personal interests.

it i invite madam deputy speaker to retake the chair. >> i wish to express my great for the high honor the house has pleased to concern upon me. i hopefully serve the house with distinction and pride as the leader -- [inaudible] in this chamber to the members -- i also want to extend my thanks to his that delightful remarks about me but the courageous way he stood aside this afternoon in -- [inaudible] circumstances. >> after another tense week in australian parliament, the government is back to where it started. a one-seat majority relying on the vote of petered slipper and craig thompson. both of whom may face criminal charges in the near future. that's all for this week. thanks for watching question time.

♪ ♪ from around the country between now and november sixth. tonight our campaign 2012 coverage will take you to indiana for governor's debate between republican congressman -- on the realty show survivor. that's live to be the at 7:00 eastern here on c-span2. also at on c-span senator kristin kristen gillibrand faces off against when city long for the senate seat. she served in the house before appointed to fill the senate seat of hillary clinton. that's 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> it started as an economic argument. men are having a harder time adoopt together economy. and women are adapting more easily. there's different periods in

history where it's been vice versa. the education and credential. the economy is fast changing. who know what it's going to be throw at us. women seem to be getting the kilts than a faster rate than the men. they seem to be more nimble. it filters down to the society. in the book i talk about how changes marriage and our notion of fatherhood and what men can and can't do. how young people have sex and make decisions and so you really start to see it having an influence in our culture. >> joins author hannah rosin to discuss the end of men. saturday night at 10:00 eastern and sunday night at 9:00 on afterwords. this weekend on booktv on c-span2. last friday washington's senate senator maria dpawsed balm combaterrer in. the political report currently rates this ?ais race as solid democrat. the debate is court sei in

seattle. hello. with the league of women voters of washington. welcome to the 2012 debate serious. we're teaming up with the legal women voter to bring you a serious of debates in some of the key races and ballot issues in the season. today's forum is with the candidates for u.s. senate. it we have a live audience which includes members of the league of women voters and supporters of and opponent of both candidates. here are the ground rules. there will be two minute opening and closing statements. we will ask all the questions. will ask each person the same question.

the order was determined in mass with a fair matter. some was in about the office. united states senator are elected every six years. they earn an annual of $174,000. you must be thirty years old. a citizens of the use for nine years, and a residence of the state you wish to represent to qualify for the job. specific duties include propose and enacting federal legislation, approval of presidential appointees such supreme court justices ratifying treaties and trying all impeachment. hire are the candidates we ask the audience to hold their applause. in of a -- mike balm balm let's give them a round of applause. [applause]

this election is about moving our country forward and solving some of our problems. like many people at home, i was frustrate bid the implosion of our economy, the fact there was a lack of access to capital, and many of the challenges we face including the fact that congress seems to want to filibuster more than it wants to work in a bipartisan fashion. i decided that i was going to work every single day trying to solve some 6 our economic issues and address jobs. this means that when i had to cross the aisle and work on the bipartisan fashion, i did so. if it meant standing up as at

only person on my side of the ail, i did that too. because knowing was going to get in the way of me fighting for washington values instead involving partnership bicker. i help pass a small business bill from banks to push capital to small businesses where 75 percent of the new job growth happens. i fought to make sure that conservative in tea party tried to kill the export-import bank. a key program for manufacturers in our state. it helps 80,000 people ship products overseas. i made sure that partnership bickering didn't kill that program. i got down to business and saved it. i worked with bowing to make sure we got the tanker deal and got program also community colleges to train laid off and unemployed workers. the future of our country lies in the workers. not in this dismantle our social networking. ly fight to preserve social security and medicare and to

keep women's health in place. we're going have to have a chance to talk about the,s tonight. i want to keep our country moving forward. thank you for watching. >> moderator: thank you. baumgartner: thank you. it's true lay privilege to be here. before i get started i want to recognize a few special ponte vedra people in the audience. i grew up here in the state of washington. the son of two great public educate educators. my mother is here. not just the happiest grandma but the best public kindergarten teacher an my father david. it's because of them i was able to go to wsu and get a degree in economic and a master degree from harvard they instilled the spirit of service within me that lead me to -- doing social work and teaching children. it was because of their sense of service that i decided to leave my private sector business career and go to iraq and afghanistan as a civilian.

mom and dad, thanks for being here. of course, my wonderful wife eel near who is here with our two children conrad and baby roman. if you hear any crying. that's roman. he's one month old and given his opinion on the state of the economy. eleanor and i met down in afghanistan. on a nairkts team. i want you to know she's the smartest and toughest person i know. she studied genetics at came bridge. she became a journalist and utterly marathoner. that's like going from seattle to portland. she did it in a dessert. i want you to know if you vote for me in the election you get a two-for one cancel, she is definitely the better half. the reason we're running for office we think washington, d.c., is broken. it's putting the future of america in jeep day for our children and your children as well. we think american needs bipartisan budgets. we think it needs private sector driven economic growth, and we think it needs to end the war in

afghanistan now and come up with a smarter foreign policy in the middle east. america needs democrats and republicans to work together. people say it's impossible. i respond if i can find love in afghanistan, all things are possible. >> moderator: thank you very much. we'll start with questions now. at the end of this year numerous tax cuts including the bush era tax cuts are set to expire. at the same time $1.2 trillion across the board spending cuts known as the sequester are supposed to take effect. the combined impact of the huge spending cut and the loss of tax breaks is being referred to as the fiscal cliff. what do we need do to avoid from going over the fiscal cliff. we'll start with -- baumgartner: thank you. i was getting ready for the debate laid gordon told me i want do you twenty times say that when maria took office we

have a surplice and now we have a $16 trillion dead. i'm not going to say it twenty times. he makes a great point. our country has gone the wrong deduction in the last 2012 years. -- than pending fiscal cliff. that was an opportunity balance the budget we passed budgets two years in a row as member of the minority that fiscal responsible bipartisan budget. senator cant bringing up real ideas like a vote on the bolls simpson agreement she wants to blame the tea party instead of talking about a solution. it's a great danger. the first thing we have should do is end the war in iraq and afghanistan. we're spending $10 billion for a economy that is $15 billion. instead of the fiscal cliff, i think we should take a look at bowels simpson. it has things i don't like and like. it is far better in a statement of a productive american that

cares about the future generation that's what's going on in the senate this year and the continuing deficit problem. cantwell: thank you. there's a reason gordon isn't here today. i represent the values of washington state. i'm going keep fighting for them. when you look at the politician my colleague criticized he's talking about bush policy. about two wars that were paid for. about a tax cut that wasn't paid for. various things that didn't work as far as our economy. if in fact you can find many republican economists who say the policy didn't work. we passed a budget control act. that budget control act cut 817 billion and we now need to come up with another $1.2 trillion. we're going do that. i specially would go back to wall street who made report profits off bail yachtout i didn't support. i would get more money back from wall street. we would end sup subsidizes for oil and gas companies that made

report profits. we don't need to keep subsidizing the companies. ee need to move off foreign oil on to other sources. i know, my colleague will find it hard to work across the aisle. ly do that. i worked with my colleagues on putting a budget control act in cutting our discretionary spending. this basically would result $18 7 billion in saving. it we would have done that two years ago we would have been in a better place to help with the fiscal cliff. i should point out my opponent said he would let us go over the fiscal cliff as we had two years ago if we hadn't cut medicare and social security. i don't want to cut them. >> moderator: thank you. we have a challenge. go ahead. baumgartner: let's take a clear listen here. she blamed president bush for the two wars that were put on a credit card. senator voted for both the wars. both these wars that were poorly planned didn't have a clear exit strategy.

foreign policy is essential for the u.s. senate. it is the foreign policy board of the country. i think it is disingenuous to blame bush for the wars she voted for. >> moderator: you grouter challenge. cantwell: the issue is joe biden a great vice president said if we are going to go to war, we should pay for it. i voted along with him and many of my other colleagues. because we can't continue to put our country in to debt by not financing those actions. i want to bring our troops home from afghanistan as the president ask and bring them home from iraq. then we can move our country forward. >> moderator: thank you very much. >> the second one? >> moderator: here's a point we can't fight wars we can't pay for. they haven't paid for. we have $16 trillion in debt. proi pose something that would help pay for the wars. i roads a one penny tax on gasoline that would be temporary at the time we had 1,000 troops in hostile conflict zone.

that's paying for the war. senator hasn't done what she said needs to be done. >> moderator: we're going to move on then. cantwell: we'll get our challenges out of the way. and go back -- listen. this is important for us to make sure that, you know, we have a lot to finance moving forward. our infrastructure as we can see it froes creates jobs. improving our airport because it improves our infrastructure and creates jobs. but we have to make sure that we're doing they things in real dollars. i don't support taxing transportation for something other than transportation. >> moderator: all right. just as a head up, both of you have used two challenges. you have one left. >> moderator: all right. we'll start with something that we have been talking about vice president joe biden said in the thursday night debate the troops are leaving afghanistan in 2014. period. paul ryan said the plan hoped to leave in 2014. but would not set an absolute deadline.

what is your position on ending the war in afghanistan? gleantd i certainly support president obama and vice president joe biden in we need to get our troops home in afghanistan. i gotth supported a measure saying let's make sure we have a ploon to do so. i want to make sure that the troops return here to the united states and we take the iraq, the afghanistan army and they stand up for the security. last night the vice president was clear. he said why have our people there taking charge of security make sure the afghan government takes responsibility for the security. i do though in a long run want to make sure that the world community and everyone support the number of great advances that have happened in afghanistan. the education of women, the broad education of the general public, when think about the horrible situation that happened to this young girl in pakistan, the united states needs to work with our partners to make sure

we're supporting the advancement of the people. baumgartner: what's interesting i'm not here to debate joe biden or congressman ryan. i thought this was something lacking from both of them in the foreign policy discussion. two dais ago i missed the anniversary because i was in fort polk louisiana advising a combat team about to deploy to afghanistan. they are supposed to be in afghanistan in 2014 and the other part of the discussion we were having is how making comments right now the pakistani we will have troops in afghanistan after tbowrt. 2014 i think any -- troops in afghanistan after twat needs to revisit the vietnam era and think about military and the thing that were said there. our interest in afghanistan is not trying to build a democracy. the soviets were there nine years and -- senator should we should have 100,000 troops on the ground trying to force

democracy in the remote and troubled country. our interest there is the denying operational training space to terrorist. we can do that by ending the war now, bringing the troops home, and treating the situation like somalia and yemen. renot credible in the middle east, you can't afford it, it's constitutional. despite whatever letters, the fact of the matter is she consistently voted to fund the war. she voted to authorize the war. she has been consistently in sport of poorly planned wars that are bankrupting this country and putting a tremendous, tremendous strain on our troops. >> moderator: thank you. we move on. if has been two years since congress passed and the president signed affordable health care act. the supreme court upheld some of the stuff that take place in 2014. effort take place in congress to repeal the act. where do you stand? what more neath to be done to --

baumgartner: my family has been blessed. i'm one of though boys both of my brothers had cancer. every time i make a health care vote i think about the quality health care we've had and how important it is to get everybody quality, assessable health care. we have dpaircht view on how to did that. i have a friend who sent a my age. self-employed, but he doesn't have health care insurance. he elected to buy husky season football tickets. that's unfortunate for a number of reasons. senator looks at the the situation to tax him. i look at it we need to vote market forces to get him a product he can afford. the idea i want to fight for whether it's obamacare or night or whether it's possible to return it being able to buy

insurance across state lines or having tort reform to bring down the cost of health care. we should have a health savings account he can foot that to a savings plan. health care give it is port public. a lot of people have it they lose their job they lose their health care. those are the idea i'm going fight for regardless obamacare is overturned or not. cantwell: the notion of buying insurance across state lines is something we debated heavily in the united states senate. in fact my colleague from wyoming offered it. i never saw so many letter os posed to by organizations in washington state. business organizations medical organizations, health care people from spokane everybody waves concerned. if you think about it. if you're concerned like those in the juvenile diabetes association, if you're concerned about what is covered under preexisting condition, the notion of passing legislation that just lets you go across the

aisle and you're not guaranteed any benefits was a big concern and so business, labor, health care, individual organization opposed it. what i worked so hard in the affordable care act to do is what our washington values are. which is to drive down the cost of health care. it should be more like the rate of inflation instead of the eight, nine, 10%. i passed new landmark legislation based on what we have done here in washington state that is to take away service and instead focus on outcomes. people might not understand but we in washington state deliver medicare services at the lower cost but actually deliver become outcomes. in fact my provision in this bill said by the cbo is one of the best cost savings benefits of the entire plan. we have to drive health care costs down. not deny people benefits. >> moderator: all right. thank you. we have a challenge. baumgartner: i think one of the

enforcive things about health care policy the lack of bipartisan in the approach. when america does big things in government we do them together. you think about civil rights or welfare reform. republicans and democrats working together. senator likes to be hyperpartisan. she blames the tanner fur not being able to get anything done. i can say no better statement if she can't work with the tea party. they're not going away. regardless what you think about them. >> moderator: okay. baumgartner: ?eert reid. >> moderator: all right. the last challenge. the tea party are not values of washington state. i go to the united states senate to hold up the value of this washington not the other washington. and when it comes to health care, our state has been so innovative whether it's what's been done at virginia maison or some of the things done at spokane we should have

community-based care instead of nursing home care. i want to make sure these things drive down cost become the law of the land. >> moderator: all right. we'll move on to a new topic. earlier this president obama issued a executive order basically ordering the department of homeland security not to deport illegal immigrants who were brought to the country were children. in the spirit of the so called dream act tell us where you stand on the dream act. explain how you view current immigration policy and you think they should or should not be changed. cantwell: i support the dream act. i really believe that if somebody has gone through our entire school system. can you imagine going to school and getting a scholarship and going to find only to find out you companied go to college in the united states even though you you had scholarships support you don't have a social security number. it shouldn't be a fault of any of these children they can't continue their education.

i supported comprehensive immigration reform. our agricultural community in centralway is countering on it. our high-tech companies are counting on it. so much our economy is counting on us not just training and skilling the work force, but also still being willing to bring the best and brightest to the united states. i want to make sure that with lindsey graham and chuck schumer. we get back to the business. those are the bipartisan individuals who have been working on a proposal that we couldn't get to because the partnership bicker in washington, d.c., was so strong and the conservative elements of the republican party didn't want to bring it up. it's costing us million the in the products that we have to pick and ship overseas because we don't get awork force. we have to solve this problem and just like the tbhail passed out of the senate before, we're going pass it again and make sure this time the house of representatives gets the job done. baumgartner: once again, we have

twelve year record of failure. it's something that has to be addressed for humanitarian reasons, national security reasons. it's somebody else's fault. i think it's unfortunate the president elected to cothis way. the issue with immigration reform it needs to be sequenced correctly. it we don't solve the system, in terms of having secure border greatly expanding the number and efficiency of the guest worker visa we're not going solve the problem in a sustainable way. so we have to put that in place before we do something like the dream act. how it has to happen first. if we take a step back on the important issue, think about what's the fundamental problem here, why does our country need to import so much labor the especially a at the time of dramatic unemployment? this is an dpiement 6 higher education system we can't get enough stem degrees here.

it needs to be sported. if you think about record unemployment in the state of washington and jobs going unfilled that pay $18. that's an dpiement of the system of welfare and labor laws here in the country. we have to look at the histic way. it's not getting solved by playing politics in election year let's expand the number of visa, secure the border and do the right thing humanely for the imgrant. >> moderator: a vast majority of scientist agree climate change is happening. and people are feel account effect in terms agricultural drought and rising sea level to name a couple what is your understanding of our national strategy to address climate change and what do you think about the federal government's top priority should be in this regard? baumgartner: well, i think it's very clear that climate change is happening. i think the berkeley study was important for that. but i don't agree with the idea that every scientist thinks it's

man caused. i think that's still debatable. either way, we need to have a natural strategy of dealing with that. the earth is getting warmer. the best efficiency and return we're going to get is do things to improve sea wall and infrastructure and make shire that sea levels rise we repaired. if we are going to have a strategy to get carbon out of the atmosphere it needs to be directed toward india and china. those are the main producer of carbon. here in the state senate, i voted to shut down the state's coal-producing plant because i thought i'd like to have clear air here. i like less carbon in the atmosphere nap stuff is going to california. it has to be balanced in a thoughtful way. as we continue to deal with climate change it's going to be on the mid gracious. we're going get the highest return and do the least damage to the economy. >> thank you for that question. i worked in a bipartisan with my colleague susan colins on two

pieces of legislation we tried to push one to say we have added -- when there is one degree temperature change it means footballing for the hydrosystem we need to plan we need to diverse fie. and i worked with susan colins on doing something that was comprehensive and so this is an important issue for us. i want us to i diversify off fossil fuels. the level of co2 and damage it cause is problem. i don't want to drill. two things i think my opponent supports. the reason is in. we need to start a prose to protect consumers in the future. not just from these environment impacts but from the high price and cost of fossil fuel moving forward. i'm confident that an energy economy of clean energy can help us create jobs, diverse fie, and

protect our environment over the long run. >> all right. corporations are people. money is speech. and citizens united is open the flood gates of unlimited money in politics. so called superpacs are now spending millions. much of it from undisclosed sources. to influence voters in state and federal races. what do you think of is a proper role of election. if elected or reelected would you support legislation requiring full disclosure of all political expenditure and sources. cantwell: yes, i support making sure that we have transparency and with the united states senate supporting mccain fine gold. it was frustrating that only parts that have ploymented. the

i helped convince people to support moving forward on campaign finance reform. baumgartner: it's interesting to hear someone who ran the race the way she did in 2000. the way it was financed talk about campaign fitness reform. i think money in politics causes a problem. i'm a tremendous disadvantage financially in the race and very difficult for us to get the truth out about talk about the solution and idea. it i can wave a wand it would be

there would be no television advertising instead of doing which is run from debate barn storm around the state and have a real discussion. be a lot better process to get people elected. there was a free speech consideration going to dproifnght that. i support greater transparent sei and full disclose sure in ferms of how we finance campaigns. our american public is so special but if you devalue and corrupt the process and play games with how you finance campaigns knows something about you really edge danger a basic democracy. i support campaign finance reform. >> moderator: let's talk about deficit reduction. the national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform recommended a $4 trillion deficit reduction target. what is your target which area of the budget, if any, would you exempt from deficit reduction.

baumgartner: thank you. as i said earlier we would be far better off to have voted in past the bowls simpson commission plan than what senator cant well done did continue to kick the can down the road and no plan for the reforms or potentially the tax increases that our economy is going to need. i would like to see a balance budget amendment or something closer to get to that in the senate we have a balance budget requirement. it forces to us to have a greater degree of fiscal responsibility and forces republicans and democrats to work together. we have to prioritize people can decide who they want to vote for and not based if we can get anywhere near the productivity back in washington, d.c., that we have gotten in the state legislature the past two years. i think the country would be better off. that's what they would be working towards.

cantwell: your question was important. when it boils down, i think the race and many races are about this. how we're going move our country forward and are we going try it balance it on the back of senior. you have my commitment i'm not going to go that. in fact one of the complaints i had about simpson bowel was the fact nay wanted to start off right away with having a cut to social security. i asked myself with all the things that have happened to our economy, the implosion of wall street, all the thing sha's have gone wrong, the fact that small business couldn't get capital and somehow it was seniors and social security that it cooked up financial instruments and thrust them on our economy? i don't think so. and yet that was their recommendation to cut social security right away. social security is valid until 2033. ..